


Happy Birthday to the end of the world

by Dreamitbeit



Series: Reapers CO [2]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Everyone Is Gay, F/F, M/M, Slice of Life, here i am!!, i actually dont mind birds, we love love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:14:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26568628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamitbeit/pseuds/Dreamitbeit
Summary: They were beautiful together in the graveyard under the swaying tree. Newt, blonde and pale, kindly patient as death itself. Brenda dark and mysterious, guiding nature down carefully manipulated paths. Thomas wants to take a picture. He doesn’t. Some things are supposed to be fleeting. Teresa takes his hand, squeezing it once in unspoken understanding.They’d fallen in love with magical things, the both of them.Or; Thomas is trying to grow up, Teresa's just trying to throw a party
Relationships: Gally/Minho (Maze Runner), Harriet/Sonya | Elizabeth "Lizzy" (Maze Runner), Newt/Thomas (Maze Runner), Teresa Agnes/Brenda (Maze Runner)
Series: Reapers CO [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932637
Comments: 23
Kudos: 49





	1. Brunch

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya guys! I've had this idea knocking around for a while, and my brain has finally levelled off enough to let me write it. This is a sequel to Death and All His Friends and won't make a lick of sense without the first one. 
> 
> The title of this fic is from the song of the same name by The Burning Hell, which gave me the idea for this in the first place so blame them.

“Tommy.” 

A breath against his ear, lips brushing his cheek. 

“Tommy.” 

Fingers running up and down his spine, feather light, sunlight shining insistently through his eyelids making him frown and burrow his head into his pillow with a sleep grumbled protest. The blankets just felt so heavy pulled right up against his cheek, weighing him down, keeping him in the warm hazy almost-asleep cocoon. He could hear the curtains rippling gently in the Sunday morning breeze. He can feel the things around him subconsciously in the way that someone very familiar with a room can. 

They’d finally managed to get end tables that were a dark enough type of wood for Newt. There was a newly framed band poster on the wall from a concert they’d gone to for their anniversary last year next to a picture of the two of them at the English seaside. Newt’s desk was gone from the space directly across from the bed. They’d turned Sonya’s room into an office and filled it with desks for both of them as well as filing cabinets that had labels like ‘Car Insurance’ and ‘Student Loan Documents-IMPORTANT’ and ‘Student Loan Documents-NOT AS IMPORTANT’ and ‘Reaper Co-Healthcare’. Thomas was on the subtle hunt for an area rug with the same marble pattern as the bedsheets Newt favored. Everything in the bedroom was glossy dark wood and black sheets and glittering gold in the morning sun.

“Tommy.” 

His chin being tilted up, a mouth pressed softly against his in a good morning peck, fingers tracing the shell of his ear, and Thomas finally swims up from the warm unconsciousness of sleep with the first sparks of desire already catching low in his stomach. 

“Hmm?” Opening his eyes drowsily to the particularly enjoyable sight of messy blonde bedhead hair, Newt’s gentle smile growing wider. There’s a rush of affection. And before Newt can even speak Thomas takes advantage of his opening mouth to kiss him deeply, and everything in that moment has a glowing out of focus quality. Newt’s hands (those hands, the ones that he’d dreamt about, the ones that he’d been holding for the last two years) slid up his back to grip the nape of his neck, thumb curling just behind his ear and fingers winding into his hair. 

“Tommy,” Whispered, just a bit ragged against his lips, and Thomas can’t help but grin, rolling fully on top to straddle him. Newt’s hands instantly fly to his thighs to grip tightly. And yeah, there were _very_ few things on the planet that looked better than Newt flat on his back first thing in the morning.

And yeah, a lot of it was Newt. All pale skin like parchment paper and long lean muscles and dark lashes against steadily flushing cheeks as the fresh spring morning streamed through the bedroom bay window.

But some of it, a _tiny_ bit of it, was the way Newt looked at him, the way Newt’s fingers trailed and traced and the way his hands clutched and went iron strong, practically shimmering with love and staring up with burning hungry eyes. The hardness in his boxers pressing insistently against Thomas’s hip.

“Tomm-”

Thomas cut him off, swooping down and kissing him soundly, Newt’s hands sliding up and down his thighs and his hips rolled, lazy morning intent in the action. And Newt knew, just fucking _knew_ how much that drove Thomas crazy, how much it made the want in his stomach catch and spread. Because even after two years, Newt never seemed to get tired of teasing him. Thomas’s breath hitched, already reaching over to their nightstand and grabbing the bottle of lube, uncapping it, taking one of Newt’s hands and guiding it from his thigh around to behind, moaning into his mouth as Newt’s fingers brushed lightly against where he wanted them most.

"Tommy.” A sigh, and Newt’s fingers brush again before disappearing, and Thomas keeps kissing him even as the cap of the bottle pops open, even as Newt laughs and tries to break away to see what he’s doing but Thomas doesn’t let him, biting the sound out of his mouth. And then Newt’s fingers are back and Newt’s rumbling happily at the noises he’s coaxing out of him. 

It’s easy, comfortable, playful. It’s Thomas’s clothes in all the closets and Newt swapping toothpaste brands because he liked the one that Thomas bought better. It’s binge watching TV series in one night and then having to _re_ watch the series because they’d started to fool around three episodes in. It’s early morning sex (a favorite) but also all their other types of sex as well. Make-up sex and ‘I missed you’ sex and ‘We’ve got twenty minutes before the take out food gets here’ sex. 

The hand on Thomas’s thigh tugs him upwards, lifting and then settling him gently, Newt exposing a particularly nice patch of neck as he arches when Thomas starts to move, because it feels _way_ too good not to be moving, to feel every inch of Newt drag and spark and hear his sleep rough voice mumble about how it felt to be inside him, how much he loved it, how good Thomas looked like this above him.

“Tommy.” Newt breathed, pupils massive and mouth panting and hands tugging at his hips, spurring him on. The morning melting heavy and sweet like brown sugar in his mouth. 

“Tommy.” Newt groaned, bucking upwards, movements becoming jerking and frantic, his eyes lidded and burning and never leaving Thomas’s face for a second as Thomas reached his peak, feeling the tightness in his stomach spiral outwards thought his body, filling his limbs with static and making him cry out, folding over in half to bury his face in Newt’s shoulder as he came, Newt whispering broken in his ear, tendons in his neck standing out sharp as he gave a last piercing roll of his hips before his body froze.

“Fuck- _Tommy_ -”

It’s a good morning. The _best_ kind of morning.

“Bloody buggering _fuck_ Tommy.” Newt sighed, giving one shaking breathless laugh and kissing the side of his face soundly. “Good morning.” His fingers trailing long slow lines up and down Thomas’s back like cool smooth stones and Thomas shivers, nuzzling closer.

“Hmm?” He stretches, his head pillowed on the fantastically damp skin that connected Newt’s shoulder and neck, humming and nipping and maybe laughing just a bit. “Such language on a Sunday. This is the lord’s day, you know.” 

With a snort from Newt and a slight grunt from Thomas they separated, only for Newt to gather him up in strong thin arms before curling around him and kissing the freckles on his shoulder. “I don’t have to play by his rules.” Newt leans over the edge of the bed to grab a discarded t-shirt and clean them. Thomas flops against the pillow, happy to doze under the gentle ministrations. 

The sounds of the street drifting up to them through the open window, a bike bell, a whoosh of a car, the clip-clipping of a pair of heels walking along. The smell of cinnamon buns in the air, the bakery across the alley cranking out pastries as fast as the blogging brunch crowd of the city could buy them. Maybe they should get some for breakfast. 

Breakfast... 

Breakfast? 

Something nudged at the back of his mind but he lets it drift away, because he’d just had a mind-blowing orgasm and it was _Sunday_ and he didn’t have to go into work, all the papers that he needed to grade could wait until later, and Newt’s ankles were hooked around his. Priorities. 

Thomas stretches, hissing with satisfaction as sore muscles pull before melting back into the rumpled sheets and soft afterglow and the feeling of Newt’s chest pressed against his. Saying ‘Tommy,’ in that particular way that had started this whole thing.

Thomas wasn’t quite able to smother the pleased smirk on his face; he quirked an eyebrow. “This isn’t Street Fighter. You can’t just have your round-two instantly. I’m only human.” 

“Hmm.” Newt kissed his cheek again. “As temping and psychologically interesting as that is, comparing our sex to Street Fighter-I’m definitely Guile by the way-we’re now,” Newt checked his Rolex laying on the nightstand, black as onyx and glossy, gold numbers catching in the light. A gift from work when he’d been promoted. “Officially at least thirty minutes late to brunch with the birthday girl and the others so we bet-”

Thomas was out of the bed like the road runner, leaving a dust cloud in his exact shape behind. The sheets hadn’t even fully settled on the mattress by the time the water was running, and even as he yelled at Newt through the bathroom door and frantically scrubbed his hair in the haze of shower steam, he couldn’t really be particularly angry about it. 

Especially when Newt slid into the shower behind him, placing a kiss on the wet slippery skin of his shoulder. Newt really had a thing for the triangle freckle configuration on his left shoulder. “I take zero responsibility for this.” 

Thomas turned, reaching up and lathering shampoo in Newt’s hair. And yeah, maybe he’d never thought he’d associate eucalyptus with panic, but. “You’d throw me to the wolves like that?” 

“Thomas you can’t expect me to be able to stop what just happened. I’m only a mortal man,” Newt’s lips brushed against his before adding ruefully. “Well, mostly.”

-

While it was a blow to his ratio of pancake breakfasts, Thomas had to admit that Sonya and Harriet’s decision to move out had been the right one. 

They’d had an offer from one of Harriet’s Attendings. A fantastically low rent for a full brownstone while the Attending accepted a five-year teaching contract abroad, as long as Harriet would continue a research project they’d been working on in the interim. And as they sat around the backyard deck’s wire table on the warm morning with Sonya’s now exploding garden of flowers around them, everything smelling sweet and fresh and _full_ in the way only spring can smell, Thomas had to admit that genius had its perks. 

“ _Don’t be a dickhead Thomas_.” Sang the violently pink and black puff of feathers that was hopping along Brenda’s ripped sweatshirt clad shoulder. The bird skipped left then right, scurrying back up until it was nuzzled directly under her chin-length black hair and whispering in her ear. _Apparently_ the little puff-ball had never learned that secrets didn’t make friends.

Thomas does the mature adult thing and sticks his tongue out at it across the table they were all seated around. Newt shakes in silent laughter next to him. He’d left bed for this brunch. He’d left his and Newt’s bed for this brunch. He’d put on one of his new short sleeve button ups for this. Thomas fidgets with the collar and then his sneakers, still trying to get used to the slightly-more-adult style he was doing his best to project. But the tongue sticking out thing might’ve taken off a few points.

“ _Don’t be a dickhead Thomas_.” Whistled the bird, and Thomas’s only response is to stab at his fruit salad and mumble about how this repetitive phrasing was _kinda_ starting to feel personal. Because he can’t stick his tongue out, because he’s _mature_. Minho snorts from his spot at the end of the table. Gally chewed on his toast and his eyebrows make it clear that he agrees with the bird. Teresa simply digs through her large purse to avoid picking sides. The aromatic lilac bush behind her looked more like a tree by this point, the bright purple flowers just touching the top of the fence around the backyard. 

Brenda tilted her head down to have another little whisper-fest with feathers before turning to grin sideways at the bird that was currently chirping quietly in her ear. “I know right.” She replies to some unheard bird-speak comment, offering up a piece of apple stolen from Thomas’s bowl that the bird took to nibble. He wasn’t sure if Brenda was pulling the longest prank in history on him or if her and the bird could actually talk to each other, but either way he took offense. 

Thomas pokes indignantly at his fruit salad, occasionally throwing a mutinous glare across the table. “Brenda tell your weird magic bird to stop talking shit. Secrets don’t make friends.” 

She looked at him hauntingly. “ _Familiar_ , Thomas. Dante’s my Familiar, not some ‘weird magic bird’ you lummox. He’s a Parakeet. A Bourke Parakeet.” The pink palm-sized puff of feathers nuzzled deeper against her neck. 

Thomas snorted, taking an insulted bite of honeydew and maybe sulking a bit, because Hitchcock had been right and this is what they all got for ignoring him. “He’s an asshole.” Newt leans across him, cheek brushing his nose and bites the cut piece of banana right off of Thomas’s fork as Thomas sputters. 

Teresa clapped her hands to get their attention, sunlight soaking the backyard overflowing with flowers and plants of every conceivable color. “Okay.” She pulled a yellow legal pad and a bright pen out of her large purse. “Enough with the chirping, that’s for the birds.” She smirks at the groans before popping off the lid of the pen with purpose and getting down to work. “So Minho, Gally, you guys got the food covered right? You’re gonna get the platters that I sent you the picture of?” 

It’d been Teresa’s idea to combine Sonya’s birthday party with an engagement party for her and Harriet. 

It’d be fun, Teresa said. 

It could be _fancy_ , she said. 

It could be a fun-fancy-birthday-slash-engagement-party, and they could host it at Thomas and Newt’s apartment, she said. 

Thomas had agreed to it, but only because she’d suggested it almost two months ago and he’d been so brain-dead exhausted he’d probably thought he’d be dead by the time the party rolled around. 

But he was still alive, and now the party was next Saturday. Six days until doomsday. He gets it, he does. His and Newt’s apartment was massive by anyone's standards, high ceilings and wood floors and bay windows that made Thomas think that the rent control had something to do with deals with devils. It wouldn’t be far off. 

And, apparently according to Teresa, the wood island countertop would be a perfect place for a massive charcuterie board. To his dying day Thomas will never admit he had to google what a charcuterie board was. 

Minho yawned, using the hand that was covering his mouth to wave lazily and lean against his less-than-usual scowling boyfriend. “You got it. Harriet gave us the company number. The order’s all placed and they’ll be ready by Friday. I do my job and I do it well.” 

Teresa nodded, jotting the note down on a legal pad and absentmindedly holding up her arm so that Dante the not-a-bird-a-Bourke-Parakeet-but-also-a-asshole could hop from Brenda to whistle and flutter happily up Teresa’s shoulder, tugging lightly on a curl with his beak and nuzzling into the silky strands. Thomas’s watched with a face screwed up in distaste. “Does he poop in your hair?” 

Teresa snorts without looking up from her writing. “No Tom.” 

He eyed the tilting rose-feathered head and beady black eyes with apprehension. “So, you just found him one day.” Not a question. Maybe an accusation. Thomas keeps a careful eye out for Lazarus, Sonya’s white and floral scaled snake. He was starting to get concerned at the amount of not-quite-right pets he was associated with. 

Brenda smiles, staring at her girlfriend and weird-magic-asshole-bird lovingly. “Mhm. He was just hopping around on our windowsill one morning, tapping on the glass like he was knocking to let him in. No idea how he got up there, the poor guy, his wings were clipped.” 

Thomas watches the bird stretch and flap on Teresa’s shoulder and then take flight, playfully spinning around the wrought metal table. “And now he can fly because...” 

“Because I grew them back for him.” Brenda says simply, beaming up at the darting rocket of color above their heads. She rips off a tiny piece of the croissant on her plate and whistles through her teeth. In a flash of neon Dante swoops down and plucks the pastry from her fingers mid-flight.

Teresa squeezes Brenda’s hand distractedly. “It was truly spectacular babe. Very witchy. You’re gonna make those good luck candles, right? The ones Mary showed you?” Not checking to see Brenda’s answer Teresa makes another note. “And Fry had to work but I’ve tried the cake he’s going to make and it’s unreal, and Gally,” She waved vaguely in the redhead’s direction. “Said he’d bring his van to pick up the alcohol so we’ll get it there in one piece. I’ve got the signature cocktail all planned out.” Another jotted note before looking up at Newt, blue eyes burning with the power that only one who was high up in the planning team of a wedding could hold. “Newt, you’re the brother-”

“Am I? Oh, so _that’s_ why Mum and Dad always kept me around.” Newt dodges the grape Teresa whipped his way (and _again_ the fruit was stolen from Thomas’s bowl, and this was starting to feel personal as well) and she continues over the interruption.

“-and as ‘best-brother-of-honor’ or whatever we’re calling it-”

Newt brushed an invisible speck of dirt off Thomas’s collar in a clear excuse to touch him. “I’m actually the only brother so thanks for setting the bar high,”

“-so I’m putting you in charge of the big last-minute-stuff. You’re officially mine and Sonya’s errand boy. Make yourself available.” 

Newt’s response is to place a firm loving kiss on Thomas's cheek, and he can’t help but lean into it, all indignation over fruit aside. Because Newt just kinda _glowed_ this morning. A shimmering shifting something that you never noticed when you were looking at him straight on, but always seemed to catch out of the corner of your vision. Thomas turned, watching how those dark expressive eyes softened, the way lashes stood out sharp against pale skin, lips as dizzying a contrast as Dante flying against a cloud. 

And maybe it was just the sunshine, or the salt-rimmed bloody mary glass in his hand, mostly empty, or the fact that the six of them were currently discussing his baby sister’s joint birthday-engagement-might-as-well-have-it-at-Thomas’s-apartment-without-really-asking- _thanks_ - _Teresa_ party, but whatever it was, Newt _radiated_ happiness. 

_Maybe_ it was the small velvet box that Thomas had found two days ago, the gold ring that he had regretfully slipped off his finger earlier that morning. When Newt had quirked a questioning eyebrow at the action Thomas had sighed, explaining begrudgingly that this is Sonya and Harriet’s spotlight week. He didn’t want to make it about Newt and him. Newt had snorted, but with an insistent look from Thomas, had done the same with the matching counterpart band of metal around his own finger. 

As if Newt could sense his line of thought he placed another firm kiss to Thomas’s cheek and whispered conspiringly in his ear. “We could tell them. They won’t mind, you know.” But Thomas shook his head stubbornly, earning another soft chuckle. 

Newt’s smile melts into something unbearably fond. His hand cups Thomas’s cheek, thumb stroking the shadow under Thomas’s left eye. “You should sleep in tomorrow Tommy.” The words are low and just for him. Thomas opens his mouth to remind Newt _just_ whose fault this morning was. 

“Hey.” Minho snapped his fingers twice in quick succession at the two of them. “Love birds. Focus. This is for the Brides.” 

“What’s _with_ you two today?” Brenda adds with a wrinkled nose of disgust. 

“Nothing.” Thomas says too quickly. He resists the urge to jerk away from Newt as if proximity alone would give away the secret. 

Her eyes narrow, her smile is nauseating. “Didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers.” 

“This whole thing is growing uncomfortably avian themed.” Gally offers from around raised eyebrows and a mouthful of toast. 

Thomas resists the urge to stick his tongue out again, because he was an adult. But maybe a tiny part of him looked at the sample wedding invitation that Sonya had shown them, running the pad of his thumb over the corner and deciding that he liked Harriet and Sonya’s choice of parchment, but he’d want his own to be black. And then he blushes, because, _aw_. And then he mentally slaps himself to get it together because he is an _adult_.

A screen door sliding open had all of them turning, and Sonya breezed out into the morning like the seasons changing from spring to summer in a gust of pastel floral prints and flowing dress fabric. And if Newt was glowing, Sonya seemed to be mildly incandescent, clean white light spilling off her skin. 

She waves at them, mouthing a silent ‘Sorry’ and gesturing to the bluetooth in her ear. She places a fresh pitcher of juice on the table before turning back towards the house, voice pleasant and polite and somehow still carrying the I Am The Queen Of Hell And Therefore In Charge tone. “Listen, Beelzebub, I _understand_ what you’re saying, I really do, but if you look over the treatment packet I sent you about our latest projections you’ll find-” Sonya disappeared back inside just as Harriet slipped out to take her place, giving a quick squeeze on her shoulder in solidarity, still in her scrubs and clearly fresh from a night shift at the hospital. 

Newt frowned. “I thought she’d already settled that whole thing at the last quarterly meeting.” His thumb was tracing absent circles on Thomas’s neck. The skin on skin was distracting, and Thomas noticed that the tiny bonsai tree visible in the window sill that Sonya cherished above all other plants was absolutely _glowing_. 

Harriet threw herself down onto a deck chair with a yawn, shaking her head through it. “Nope. Bubs sent her a revised budget. He’s trying to cut insurance coverage again.” Newt rolled his eyes in exasperation over demonic-inner-office-politics and Harriet straightened up to look at Teresa’s notes with a grin when they’re handed to her. “You’ve got this handled I see?” 

Teresa’s eyes burned with bloodthirsty passion that can only come from being fairly high up in the chain of command of wedding planning. She already had another legal pad in her hands, clenching it slightly with glee. “I have mild control issues. This feeds me.” 

Harriet gave a knighting ceremony wave of her hand, letting her eyes slip closed and sinking into the deck chair again. “Take it all. This internship might kill me. If I manage to make it through the night without falling asleep it’ll be a miracle.” 

With a sharp lean forward Gally squinted at her scrubs for a moment before recoiling with a pulled face. “Is that _blood_ on you?”

Harriet’s eyes flutter open and she inspects the dark splotches all over her shirt. “Huh, would you look at that.” She gave a ‘What you gonna do?’ shrug then paused, elbows pushing her up straighter with a frown. “Is that my fruit salad?”

Thomas pushed the bowl away with a clatter. “It was that pigeon Brenda kept around, Dante. I tried to stop him.” 

Newt smothers a laugh in his neck.

-

Later, as they’re lying in bed with backs braced against the headboard Thomas propped his own legal pad (Shoved into his arms by a mildly chaotic grinning Teresa) on one of his bent knees. “Okay so-” He starts, only to have the words swallowed by Newt’s mouth pressing firmly against his own. Sighing and leaning into it, slow and sweet and full of intentions. Newt angling towards him, long fingers reaching to pluck the notes from his hands and place them on the bed-side table. “Newt-” Breaking the kiss with a laugh only to have it trail off into a sharp sigh as Newt’s hand slid up his thigh, long fingered and palm insisting. 

“I have to go over those essays.” Thomas says, hand waving vaguely in the direction of the nightstand where the latest pile of assignment sat. Masters program meant being a teacher's assistant, and Thomas is infinitely thankful he’d gotten one of the theoretical film courses to TA for. A couple of the undergrads in his tutorial had good instincts, but Thomas just _knows_ that if he was grading actual film pieces he’d be watching a _lot_ of interpretive black-and-white silent movies. His palms had been Teresa levels of sweaty on his first day even though all he’d done was answer questions about the syllabus to hungover glassy-eyed freshmen. But he’d actually kinda hit his stride as time went on. He wasn’t bad at it. 

(“ _Ewewewewew_!” Chuck has screeched when he’d looked up Thomas’s TA scores on a student rating website. “People think your _hot_.”)

Newt smirked, kissed him again, got Thomas lying flat on his back within minutes. And even as Thomas leans up to chase the sensation of Newt nipping tiny love bites into his neck he does his best to clear his conscience. “If Teresa kills me because I haven’t finished the h'orderves ‘To-Do’ list it’s your fault.” He manages to groan the words out just as Newt slides between his legs, fingers hooking under the waistband of his boxers. 

With a hum Newt leans down, mouth hot and wet against his jaw. “She’ll forget all about it as soon as we ask her to plan _our_ wedding.” He tangles their hands together and Thomas feels the tiny smooth metal bands pressing together against his skin.

“Yeah.” Thomas sighs, chin tilting back to give Newt’s searching lips more access. “I don’t want that stupid bird of Brenda’s around though.”

“ _Familiar_ Tommy.”

“Dude shut the fuck _up_ -” Thomas laughs. Newt stops him.

-

On Monday Thomas’s phone starts to buzz insistently in his pocket. He pauses in his wandering of the backlot looking for a particular piece of equipment to answer it without checking who was calling. It’s a mistake.

“ _Yo. Meet me in the graveyard between Front Street and Washington tonight at one am._ ” 

Thomas pulled his phone away from his ear to look at it. Brenda’s contact picture stared back at him, a horrible filtered thing that made her mouth tiny and her eyes huge. The numbers on the screen ticked the seconds of the call away. “ _Thomas_?” Her voice came out slightly distorted from the speakers. Thomas pauses in the small cluster of offices attached to the main movie lot they were currently filming in to pull his ring off his finger and shove it in his button-up’s chest pocket. He kept forgetting to take it off when he left the apartment.

Ninety percent of his job seemed to be some variation of a Victorian child’s. Seen and not heard, fetching things, wandering halls. Filming when no one was looking. But people had started to look, and they _liked_ what they saw. 

An almost done Master’s degree had quickly turned into a potential PhD candidacy which led him to a networking event that had gotten him talking to a director he clicked with, that had transformed into a phone call about an internship with said director. The internship was going, to put it lightly, amazing. He was the third Assistant Director. Which means there was a second AD, a first AD, and then the director. 

In a ladder of four, Thomas came fourth. But he was _on the ladder_ , and now all he had to do was climb. _Hitchcock_ had been an AD. _Kurosaw_ had been a AD. 

And, honestly, the second AD was going through a pretty brutal divorce and Thomas had happily picked up some of the slack because _Jesus_ she had enough going on without corralling extras into the proper blocking set up of a scene. 

Plus Thomas had an eye for long-range shots and, apparently, a work-ethic that bordered on ‘rabid dog’. He could handle it. After three long phone conversations with his parents that involved a lot of pacing and hair pulling and ‘Mom, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m going to keep up with school but I can’t pass this up-’ and ‘No Dad I don’t think it’s too much,” Thomas had thrown himself into the world of film headfirst. The pay was crap but the work was great and he had a sneaking suspicion from dropped hints that they might be offering him a _job_ when his internship was over. An Adult _Job_. At a tiny indie production company, yeah. But _still_. 

The PhD was up in the air, but the deadline for funding applications lurked in the back of his mind like a distant ticking clock. 

Thomas put the phone back to his ear. “Bren you can’t do this shit with other people, you know that right? Like, when you become a scientist or build robots or whatever, you can’t just call your project supervisor and be like ‘Hey meet me in the abandoned warehouse, I have a nuclear reactor.’ You know that, right?” 

“ _Fuck off. Graveyard, one am. Bring Newt._ ”

“Bren-fuck, _why_ exactly?”

“ _New spell that I’m working on_.” Thomas sighed loudly right into the speaker. “ _Oh fuck off I’ll bring snacks._ ”

“Is this a Frankenstein thing? Are you trying to be Dr. Frankenstein? This is how zombies are made. You promised me no zombies. That’s not allowed.” The boom guy was looking at him oddly. Thomas locks eyes with him, panics internally, then mouths ‘little brother’. The guy laughs and nods his head knowingly. Thomas gives a fake cheerful silent laugh back and lets his face fall the second he turns, catching just the last word of Brenda’s sentence. “Huh?”

“ _I’m not trying to be Frankenstein. Bring Newt_.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll be there. I’ll get Newt to come.” There was a loud buzz above his head. He looked up at the flashing red light. “They’re resetting the scene, gotta go.” 

“ _Alright. Graveyard, one am._ ”

-

“This is a bit fucking much.” Thomas mumbles into Newt’s hair. Newt smiles and shushes him, teeth flashing in the moonlight. 

Thomas defends his statement. This was a bit fucking much. But Brenda had brought snacks. 

It was a bit fucking much, because Brenda had dragged the two of them to a graveyard, at night, on a full moon. But the snacks were good. Steamed pork buns from the chinese food place two doors down from her and Teresa’s apartment. The best in the city, in Thomas’s humble opinion.

“ _Shh_.” Brenda hissed through grit teeth, her eyebrows pulled down and her eyes smashed closed, whole face screwed up in a concentrated grimace. 

“Sorry.” Thomas says again, shifting slightly in his spot sitting on top of the wood bench’s backrest. He takes another huge bite of the steamed bun in his hand. It was cold but his jacket was thick, and Newt sitting properly on the bench directly in front of him bracketed between his bent knees was a constant source of warmth. Newt did that sometimes, something that glowed around the edges. 

Newt tucked his hand easily in his pocket and Thomas could tell that he was absently playing with the rings that they’d ripped off their fingers in the empty parking lot with hissed shouts of ‘ _Shitshitshit_ ,’ seconds before Teresa and Brenda pulled up in their own car. 

Brenda was distracting, standing before the ancient oak tree and surrounded by tombstones, looking like something out of a renaissance art themed adaptation of The Blair Witch Project. It was a lot. Was a _bit much_. 

Her hands raised and palms upturned, cupped around a strange flower that she had never specified where she’d gotten from. It smelled faintly of liquorice, round like a chrysanthemum and tinted a mysterious shade of purple. Brenda’s hair floated softly as if it was caught in an updraft. When she turned to look at them her eyes were old like galaxies. “Newt?” 

Newt squeezed Thomas’s knee and went to stand in front of Brenda, placing his hand lightly overtop of the flower. The row of tombstones behind Newt looked like lines and lines of out of focus mirrors. He felt more magic here, warm unseen breeze swirling between Brenda and him, leaves spinning around their ankles in slow circles. The moonlight had him startlingly pale, turning the shadows of his face jet-black. Everything about Newt was lined with charcoal. Brenda was unknowable, smokey and shadowed, something that existed behind the veil that could either awe or terrify. 

Newt as a necessity for tonight became clear when they’d first gotten there. 

Brenda wanted to try to contact the dead. 

And what better way to help tempt them closer than someone who regularly went to fetch them? 

“It’s not about Newt, so much.” Brenda had explained when they’d first walked along the white gravel path of the graveyard. “It’s just giving the object some kind of influence and intent. Benign death objects are expensive as _fuck_ according to Mary. So I just thought, ‘Hey, why not make my own?’ And what’s more benign than a Reaper? They’re the impartial third party of the whole thing. I’m not gonna _not_ try it.” 

“This is a terrible idea.” Thomas whispered to Teresa sitting beside him. They’d walked around the graveyard for a few minutes, the winding gravel path getting thinner and thinner with each step. It was one of the oldest in the city, dates as far back as the eighteen fifties etched into rock, tombstones starting to crumble the deeper they’d gone, until Brenda had stopped abruptly by an ancient oak tree. It was a massive omnipotent thing that towered over her. She’d smiled like she’d seen an old friend and waved the three of them to the rusted bench a few feet away. 

The slight _othering_ in the air grew thicker. Static before a storm.

Teresa shrugged without looking at him. Her chin was tilted with an angle of teasing superiority. “You said that about going to the three-D version of IT Chapter Two.” 

“You were so scared you _cried_.” 

Teresa smirked like a cat. “Yeah. Scary movie. That’s the whole point.” 

“So this is just to make an ingredient for a different spell?” Newt asked Brenda conversationally, as if standing under bright full moons while glowing and resting his hand on strange flowers that were osmosising his walk-between-worlds-magic was a weekly occurrence. 

Brenda nodded. “Yeah. I’m just getting stuff ready. I’ve already got most of it. I think this’ll really give me a edge.”

Thomas frowned. “Why’s Newt going to give you an edge?”

“Because, oh _apparent_ wise one, Reapers like Newt _find_ things. That’s their whole point. So here’s a benign death object embedded with the essence of finding things. Alright with you?” Brenda’s teasing always felt like a grease fire, tiny little pops of heat that made you jump and grin. 

“I guess that’s alright. Where’s your pigeon? Scared an owl might eat him?” 

As if summoned, there was a tiny whistle of sound. A bright pink puff of a head poked out of Brenda’s coat hood. The bird’s tiny beak opened. “ _Don’t be a dickhead Thomas_.” 

This was a bit much. He was twenty four, a few months away from graduating his Masters, engaged to the guy he was head over heels for. He refused to be bullied by a bird. 

“He’s teasing you Tom.” Teresa mumbles while rooting around in her backpack and pulling out another legal pad.

Thomas peeks over her shoulder at the paper. Completely blank and unused, different than the one from brunch then. "Where are you _getting_ all of these?" 

"Shhh." Teresa hushed, starting to jot down seemingly random words like 'Cucumber?' and 'Lightbulb-Gally'. She was wearing a sweatshirt from their old high school and her hair piled high in a messy bun. One am in graveyards was apparently not something to dress up for. Thomas would feel a lot less stupid if he wasn’t wearing a matching outfit. They should have a rule about it. 

“So what else is left?” Newt asked because very little could ruffle him. Even some kind of strange pre-contacting-the-dead-ritual that needed to be done before the _actual_ -contacting-the-dead-ritual. 

Brenda flashed a victorious smirk with added teeth. “The only things I still need are this flower, a key with no lock, and some mint leaves.” 

They were beautiful together in the graveyard under the swaying tree. Newt, blonde and pale, kindly patient as death itself. Brenda dark and mysterious, guiding nature down carefully manipulated paths. Thomas wants to take a picture. He doesn’t. Some things are supposed to be fleeting. Teresa takes his hand, squeezing it once in unspoken understanding. 

They’d fallen in love with magical things, the both of them. 

Newt smiled down at Brenda. “Where are you going to find that?” 

Brenda shrugged. “I dunno, it’s not like it’ll be hard, I bet the grocery store down the stre-”

“I meant the key with no lock.” Newt corrects with a mild grin. 

“Oh, Gal is going to make me one. Okay, that’s good. You can go sit down.” 

Newt goes and sits down back into his previous position as ordered. Thomas hands him the steamed bun. “So did it feel weird? Having your life force drain away or whatever?” 

With a huge bite and a fake contemplative nod Newt pulls an overreaching thoughtful face just to tease him, hand cupped around the dumpling beseechingly. His voice is a mockingly pretentious poet, he looks like he’s about to laminate Yorick and how, alas, Newt knew him well. “Time does tend to slip through one's fingers-”

“Oh shut the fuck up.”

“ _Shh_.” Brenda hisses. Teresa hides her smile behind her hand. 

Newt stretches up so that he can whisper in Thomas’s ear. “Yeah, Tommy, _shhhh_.” 

“Make me.”

Newt flicks his nose. Thomas squeezes Newt’s boney sides with his knees in retaliation and gets a pinched thigh in return. Thomas kisses him and rubs their noses together. Newt’s smile is just as dopey as his.

“Okay, seriously,” Teresa’s eyebrows are so high her forehead wrinkles. “What the fuck is up with you two.”


	2. Lunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole story is just a huge indulgent Newtmas loving each other thing because the other thing I'm writing now is huge and long and so dark and intense and I needed to write them HAPPY.

He meets Minho and Teresa for lunch the next day at Trinity, the bar slash cafe constantly filling and emptying with students and eclectic souvenirs. There was a mug selection of vast randomness that ranged from glasses shaped like fat cauldrons and steaming with foamed milk all the way to delicate intricate tea cups laced in gold. It was random, all-consuming. The one that Minho was sipping on was a classic squat tea mug that had the words ‘Westport, Washington State, the westernmost "Westport" in the world!’ in big bright faded letters overtop of a cartoon picture of a lighthouse. Thomas gives himself a mental reminder to bring one of Newt’s and his mugs down to donate. It was comfortable soft chairs and chipped vases with pens sticking out of them, warm wood tables that shone softly. 

Honestly finding out that Mary, the beloved bartender/owner was a witch was the easiest thing to accept about the whole ‘You know that boy you _really_ like? He’s death! Surprise!’ thing. 

The milk frother and keg taps take turns making gentle background noise. Conversations rose and fell around them, moans about exams or talks about nights out or, notably, a girl complaining to her friend about their roommate’s pet bird. Thomas sends her a silent vibe of support and validation. He was picking up what she was laying down. 

He chomps away at a sandwich as Minho talks about super-grains, taking occasional sips from his coffee and showing Thomas pictures on his phone of the physical therapy he was learning. Thomas makes impressed noises around a mouth full of food. “Are you going to start charging me to work out together?”

With a flash of teeth Minho smirks. “I’ll write you off on my taxes as a charity case.” 

Teresa fusses with her intricate bun while using her phone camera as a mirror. “My thesis advisor meeting isn’t going to take long. Tom are you done on set for the day?” She takes an absent sip of her latte, finger twirling around a particularly stubborn lilac tipped curl. 

Thomas nods around a bite before adding, “We wrapped just before this so I’m good.” He stifles a yawn and scowls at their glares of envy. “Don’t look so scandalized. Crew call was at five am.” He touched his ring finger self consciously. He’d forgotten to take the small band of gold off until they’d sat down, slipping the metal off under the table. Thank god he kept his hands in his pockets so much.

But early morning starts aside, Thomas couldn’t complain. He loved his job. The downside was that he was now juggling the tail-end of a Masters _and_ the previously mentioned AD job _and_ the deadline for PhD funding requests was looming on the horizon...Thomas yawned just thinking about it. He was _really_ tired.

Teresa put her phone down with a clatter, snapping Thomas out of his doze. “Okay Minho, your placement is done at four, so Tom you come with me and I’ll have my meeting quick and then we’ll all go to the tailors. You both have your final fittings and Newt’s suit is ready for pickup so you can grab it to bring home as well.” She rattled off commands and then hit them both with a piercing blast of icy blue. Thomas nodded, partially because his mouth was full again and partially because Teresa was terrifying. 

Minho gave a sharp salute, partially because he thought every joke of his was funny and partially because he wasn’t nearly as terrified of Teresa as he should be. “Aye’ Captain.” He took another sip of his drink. “Did we really have to get _suits_ though? And get them tailored? Why not just dress shirts. I already _have_ dress shirts.”

Teresa rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not like it’s a three piece tuxedo Min. Besides, you both needed suits. You’re old enough that it’s time to own a suit that fits nicely.” Minho and her engage in a staring contest. “Besides, you look great.” 

This mollifies Minho. He nods. “I _do_ look great.” 

Teresa nodded agreeably then had one of what she called, ‘Thomas’s coveted lightbulb moments’ and snapped her fingers. “Oh,” She pauses, rooting around in her purse for a second before pulling out two small pieces of paper, handing one each to Minho and him. “Also, Bren’s working on her whole séance thing, apparently you need a few people to ‘harness the flow of the connection’ so here, I’m giving you these invitations. It’s tomorrow.”

Thomas looked down at the artfully folded envelope, the intricate scrawl of the cursive handwriting, jet black ink, the light porus feel of the paper, almost soft. His was addressed to ‘Dickhead’ and he wondered absently if that was the _only_ way that Brenda referred to him now, and maybe Dante wasn’t to blame as much as he’d previously thought. Whatever. Bird was still creepy as fuck. Thomas does some quick mental math. “I have to pick Chuck up from the airport tomorrow but I can make it there by four.”

“Um.” Minho says, looking down at the paper with the date of the supposed séance on it. “You couldn’t just tell us? Sending invitations the day before feels distinctly against Emily Post.”

Thomas chokes on a sip of his water. “Yeah, because Bren is _so_ about Emily Post.” 

Teresa waved the comments away like flies. “No, you have to bleed on it, that’s how the invitation is accepted-here,” She reached back in her purse, pulling out a tac and quick as lightning pokes Thomas’s hand.

“ _Ow_ Teresa.” A perfect red circle, fat and shiny, welds up from the pad of his index finger.

“Oh boo-hoo you’re fine. Now dab the drop on the paper or else you’ll be cursed for all eternity or whatever.”

Thomas cradled his injured finger to his chest before sighing, smearing the red on the invitation and watching with widened eyes as the ink shone brightly for a second then faded to a deep metallic red. “You know, I liked you a lot better before you were all about the occult.”

Teresa stuck her tongue out at him before turning to Minho, who tucked his hands under his thighs in a thinly veiled cower. “You know what? I think I’m busy that night? Yeah, no, I’m _sure_ I am actually, I’m _swamped_ actually, I’m- _ow Teresa_.” 

“You’re _fine_ Min, big strong guy like you. Here, you want the rest of my latte?” She pushed the large mug across the table, a low-pitched grinding sound accompanied by a playful smirk. And Minho does want the latte, but he grumbles around the foamed milk and looks distrustfully at Teresa’s bag for the rest of lunch, just in case.

When Thomas kicks his way into his apartment a few hours later, arms full of suits and keys between his teeth, it's to find Newt already on the couch, knees tucked close to his chest and arms wrapped around his middle, surfing Netflix to find something to watch. The late afternoon sun through the bay windows throws everything into sharp relief like stained glass. The wood of the flooring seems warmer, the ever-present teapot seems a brighter shade of purple **,** the shadows high on the walls from the plants that still littered the apartment like a mini-jungle. 

Sonya had brought most of them with her when she’d moved out, but Thomas had taken up the mantle of caretaker for those left behind, watering the cactuses and ferns and bamboo shoots carefully. Because he wasn’t _sure_ , but to his slightly over-thinking-brain, this might just be some kind of test. 

The old flip phone for Newt’s work was tossed haphazardly on the kitchen island, and when Newt turns towards the sound of the door clicking closed his smile pulls tight just a tiny bit at the corners, looking slightly pale and out of focus, wearing one of Thomas’s thickest sweatshirts. Thomas’s heart squeezes in his chest. 

Because it happened sometimes, a tough collection. Newt rarely talked about them, partially because it was hard to explain, walking a foggy glittering tightrope between life and death and everything in-between like he did. 

But also because, (and it had taken Thomas a little while to figure it out, but when he had it’d just made _sense_ , in a very Newt way) it was a private experience, dying. Peaceful or not. Newt held those stories close to his chest like a librarian with treasured books. And sometimes books got heavy. 

Thomas let the suits fall out of his arms onto a chair sloppily, striding over and throwing himself down on the familiar leather of the couch with a bouncing sigh of relief, draping across Newt who gives a happy hum and unbends his legs, laughing at the thinly veiled attempt to stop the shivering. Thomas had, after all, always run warm. 

“What?” Thomas mumbles into the jutting collarbone.

Strong slim arms wrap around him, and he can’t help but sigh and melt and worm his way closer, placing an absent kiss to the _particularly_ enjoyable dip in a pale throat, and then another, and then a tiny nip, feeling the skin tense with a bobbing swallow. “Those suits are going to wrinkle. My sister might disapprove.” Newt mutters, words slightly muffled from Thomas’s hair. 

Thomas shrugged, adding a peck just under Newt’s jaw. “She’s not so tough.”

“She’s the Antichrist Tommy.”

“Meh.” With another shrug at his soon-to-be-sister-in-law’s-demonic-status Thomas rearranges them so they’re lying down and he can happily blanket Newt. Chest to chest, legs tangled together. The rise and fall of Newt’s breathing like a lullaby, the slow steady thumping beat of his heart loud in Thomas’s ear, lax and content. He slips his engagement ring back on. Newt doesn’t watch but Thomas can tell he’s preening. 

The comfortable silence stretches like honey, gold tinted and heavy, dripping with warmth. Thomas turns his face away from the screen, letting his eyes drift closed. Smiling when he heard the tell-tale notes of the opening theme for the movie that Newt had settled on finally. “Life, uh, finds a way.” Thomas mumbles the quote, smiling wider when Newt’s chest vibrates with a snort. The TV turned low and the sounds of the street drifting through the open window, the unmistakable smell of sunset in the city, the breeze somehow sweet and fresh despite the metropolis. Maybe it was all the plants. 

Newt’s fingers start to slide through his hair and he fights the desire to let his eyes stay closed. Fights the desire to pull the blanket draped across the back of the couch over them and fall asleep. He had an essay to write and assignments to grade, but he couldn’t get up. Newt was cold. Priorities. 

“Tough one?” Thomas offered into the quiet. 

“Mhm. It was. I feel better now.” Newt played absently with the hair at the nape of his neck, scratching his scalp in a way that made Thomas melt and sink closer into the possibility of an afternoon doze. Good things had, after all, been known to happen when he fell asleep on this couch. 

“You should try your suit on.” Thomas tells Newt’s chest drowsily and Newt laughs, just as sleep heavy a sound. Looks like he wasn’t the only one interested in a sunset nap. 

“That endeavour would involve not having a _hugely_ overworked student-intern falling asleep on top of me.” Newt says, adding a firm kiss to his temple like an unspoken asterisk. Thomas admits he has a point. 

With a groan and a stretch, he drags himself up into a sitting position, scratching his head and blinking dopily. “You can’t play with my hair and expect me to stay conscious. This is a known quantity.” It’s a deflection, subtly trying to avoid the mildly hot button topic of the fact that Newt thought he was taking on too much. When Thomas had first started his assistant director internship, he was still learning to juggle school _and_ work _and_ the PhD application process and there’d been a _few_ particularly good fights over it, one of them three-days-tense-exchanges-long as Newt tried to convince him to defer. 

(“It’s your _passion_ Tommy. Everyone sees that you practically float home from set each day. School is still there, will always be there. I love you for trying to take it all on because that’s who you are but it’s too much. You can’t give a hundred percent to everything; you’re already burning yourself out.” Newt had snapped, angrily shoving a mug of some kind of terrifyingly Sonya-created restorative kale smoothie into his hands. Newt’s forehead had had that tiny wrinkle of a worry line in-between his eyebrows that Thomas secretly adored but never mentioned to him, because then he might stop doing it.)

Newt got up from the couch in a tangle of spider limbs that was still somehow graceful, swooping down and placing a last affectionate kiss on Thomas’s forehead before drifting over to pluck up the clothing bags and disappearing down the hall to the bedroom. “I ordered dinner just after I got in so if the bell rings that’s it yeah?” As if on command the buzzer for the front door sounded out. Thomas grinned, pulling himself up and off the couch with a _huge_ amount of not-dramatic-at-all difficulty. 

As he heaved the bulging bags of take-out on the counter, paying the _very_ confused delivery girl who probably expected some kind of corporate party considering the sheer amount of sushi, Thomas had to wonder, yet again, where the _hell_ all the food that Newt ate went. (Thomas definitely didn’t shovel a few pieces of avocado roll into his mouth over the sink like a sewer rat, no way, nuh huh.) He was back to dozing on the couch with the roar of dinosaurs as a lullaby by the time Newt emerged, and then Thomas was _wide_ awake. 

Because leaning against the frame of the hall was Newt, fussing absently with a cuff link. Suit as black as midnight, perfectly tailored. Already long legs lengthened to ridiculous proportions, shoulders snug against the fabric and pulling in all the right places. White dress shirt open at the neck and tie hanging like a noose ready to be tightened. Messy blonde hair curling at his jaw, around his ears, a stray piece stuck in the corner of his sharply curving grin. “How’s it fit?” 

Thomas stands up from the couch, (much less dramatically this time, because he was a little sidetracked) not taking his eyes away for a second, because he _really_ wanted this mental image forever, and he managed to strangle out a ragged “Good.”

Newt grins mischievously, like he just _knows_ what this was doing to Thomas, the absolute bastard. “I know.” _Bastard_. “I look like bloody Prince Charming. Can you believe how lucky you are-” He was cut off, quite suddenly, by Thomas’s tongue in his mouth. With a huff of laughter his hands slid up Thomas’s back, grip getting progressively tighter as they explored upwards. The kiss turning heated in a blink of an eye, Newt’s soft sounds escaping every time Thomas pulled back for a second, only to press in again firmer, teasing and heavy. Already unbuttoning the newly pressed dress shirt, starting from the top Thomas works way down, the fabric stiff and crinkling under his fingers.

Everything smells like fresh laundry and Newt’s cologne and Thomas inhales greedily. Working all that pale skin between his teeth, leaving tiny marks that dot a path of constellations down Newt’s neck. Feeling hands at his back slide up, slip into his hair and curl into fists, giving a tiny tug that makes him hiss and sends shivers down his spine in the best way possible. Smooth cool palms pressing against his overheated skin feel like heaven, and Thomas takes his time.

Enjoying the way that Newt twitches and groans, at the way he sighs, tilting his head to the side to let Thomas get more, shivering when Thomas places soft insistent kisses along his jaw, down to his collarbone, back up again. And then down, button by button, inch by inch. The occasional flash of teeth that had Newt rolling his hips in search of friction. “ _Tommy_.” It’s a cut off sigh of a word. The sound is music to his ears, makes his pulse skip with a missed beat. 

He can’t get enough of Newt, can _never_ get enough of Newt. They’d circled each other so carefully, hesitantly. Newt because of his secret and Thomas because of his not-so-secret second-guessing tendencies. But now. 

Another button, another inch. Thomas’s fingers toy lightly with a nipple through cotton until the next shirt button is undone, the bundle of nerves growing hard as his thumb brushes over it. His lips are warm against cool pale skin, a wonderful contrast. The hands in his hair are tangling, Newt’s chest heaving, his head falling back against the wall with a low dull _thunk_ that sounded like it should’ve hurt, but Newt didn’t seem to notice. 

The wood of the floor connected with Thomas’s knees and his hands pushed Newt’s hips sharply against the wall. “You do look good.” Thomas muttered, his breath warm and puffing against skin and making Newt shiver. And then he looked up, feeling his already flushed cheeks burn with the way that Newt gazed down at him, hooded and pupils so huge they seemed to take over. 

“You look good.” Thomas says, and then he gets down to making Newt feel as good as he looked. Fingers undoing his fly slowly, popping the button, hooking into Newt’s boxers and pants and pulling them down in one smooth motion, just enough to allow him access. He doesn’t give Newt a second, swallowing him down instantly. 

“ _Shit_ Tommy.” 

And Thomas does his best not to grin as Newt’s hands fist in his hair, tugging sharp and making him buzz. Letting his lips slide along satin skin and vein and hearing the sound that Newt makes sends heat shooting into his stomach and then lower. “Fuck-Thomas.”

Thomas pulls back again, Newt thumps his head against the wall with a muffled spew of curses and laughter. “Tease.”

And when Thomas starts to bob in earnest, to breathe deeply through his nose and take Newt as much as he could, the feel of the back of his throat being hit and fighting the gag Newt doesn’t _just_ curse. “Feels so good Tommy.” Thomas lets his eyes flutter closed, let’s the praise fill him up with heat. “So good for me.” Newt’s fingers trace his jaw. Thomas is so hard it hurts. He presses his palm to his erection still trapped in his jeans with a hope that the bite of the zipper will bring him back from the edge. 

So, he had a little bit of a praise thing when it comes to Newt, sue him. But, honestly. Newt had that accent and that voice and the uncanny ability to know _just_ what to say to Thomas to stop him from going off kilter. Or push him further. 

“You look so good Tommy.” Thomas can’t help the pained sound that gets trapped in his blocked throat. The vibrations make Newt shout. 

Newt’s body is a perfect curve, his heels pressing against the wall, body pulling out in a full arch and not touching the wall again until the crown of his head. Newt’s hips stutter and he shakes out an apology, but Thomas just tugs on his thighs in clear invitation. Because it was a _different_ feeling, having Newt stutter out his name, voice sex-broken and desperate. It was the _best_ feeling. With a groan like he’s dying Newt’s hands grip tight in Thomas’s hair and he rolls his hips once, twice, and comes with a shout, lurching forward

When Thomas swallows Newt twitches, and when Thomas pulls away he makes a tiny sound, sagging back against the wall on legs that looked in danger of collapsing. It’s quiet as Thomas gets to his feet, knees protesting with an ache that he didn’t notice until exactly this moment. Newt instantly slumps against him in boneless glory. 

Thomas feels an embarrassingly huge swell of pride over the way Newt was mouthing lazily at his neck, dragging slightly parted lips along his collarbone like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to speak or kiss. Because _he_ did that. _Thomas_ did that. It takes Newt almost a minute before he decides what he wants to do with his lips. And when he does it’s just an exhale of “ _Tommy_.” 

Thomas laughs, smug and brightly happy, walks them backwards to the couch until they’re tumbling over it to fall lengthwise along the leather. There’s a slight bounce that has the springs squeaking. They’re side by side, staring at each other. Thomas is still hard, _want_ and _ache_ buzz just under his skin like an engine that needs the slightest touch of jumper cables to start. It feels shivery electric to wait, a low roar in the back of his head that he knows is going to be satisfied eventually. 

It’s nothing to slide his hand along Newt’s chest and nudge his shirt and suit jacket a little further down his shoulder. There’s a hickey the shape and color of a jellyfish cap forming along Newt’s clavicle. Thomas brushes the mark of broken blood vessels lovingly with his thumb. In some prehistoric lizard part of his brain Thomas thinks ‘ _Mine_ ’. He feels a twinge of guilt about the possessive thought, tries to smother it. 

Then again, Newt was ready to get suited up, stand in front of all of their friends and family and pay fifty dollars per plate just so he can promise to love Thomas when they’re old and balding or grossly sick with the flu. 

So, yeah. _Mine_. 

Newt tilts his jaw to pull the skin taut. His fingers tap a playful beat up Thomas’s stomach to his chest. “Admiring your handiwork?” Those playful fingers float back down towards his abs with barely-there pressure. 

“Yeah.” Thomas croaks. The muscles in his stomach jump.

The pad of Newt’s thumb finally reaches the line of hair between Thomas’s belly button and his jeans, and stops to give light soothing strokes across the skin and soft hair. “What brought that on?” His eyes are dark, his thumb trails up and down slowly, less playful by the second.

“You.” Thomas croaks. “You looked,” But he’s cut off by his own sharp inhale when Newt’s hand cups the bulge in his pants, pressing down gently.

“You’re so hard Tommy.”

Blood started to flow south at the first touch, and that’s all it takes for Newt to get him revved back up into overdrive just by palming him gently through his jeans. 

He’s been on edge for so long and all Thomas can think about is the way Newt groaned out his name as he came. He’s shifting, hips making tiny uncontrollable motions to stay in contact with Newt’s hand. It’s exactly right and not _enough_ and it makes his dick throb so bad his eyes go a little unfocused. 

He’s secure enough in his masculinity to admit that he whimpers. “Newt-” But he’s cut off by Newt rolling over top of him, pushing gently between his thighs so Thomas has no choice but to wrap his legs around Newt’s waist. It presses their pelvises together, makes Thomas twitch and grind up to search for friction because he _needs to come now_ and this view is driving him _crazy_. Newt’s shirt unbuttoned and hanging, his tie is still loose around his neck, the knot unraveling with each pull. But it’s the flush of Newt’s cheeks, the toothy victorious smirk and the mess of his hair that makes Thomas reach up, fingers curling around the tie to tug Newt down on top of him. His heart _hurts_ in the absolute best kind of way possible. 

“Gonna marry the fuck out of you.” Thomas mutters between their lips. His hands can’t decide if they want Newt’s shirt and jacket on or off. They compromise to fist around both collars and pull Newt closer. 

Newt laughs right into his mouth, a breathlessly happy sound. “Glad you're enthusiastic about the idea.” His coaxes tiny pleading noises out of Thomas by grinding down on the hard line of his jeans with a gentle palm. “Gonna make you come Tommy, make you feel so good.” 

Thomas arches, groans at the way the curve of his back makes the throb between his legs ache more. Hair was stuck to the sweat on his temples. He was so wound up he practically twitched with it. 

Newt gets his shirt off and pants down but keeps his own suit on. _Something_ short circuits in Thomas’s brain as he props himself up on his elbows and looks down at Newt kneeling between his thighs, hair all messed up by hands and shirt hanging open, jacket disheveled, pants pulled up sloppily. 

The second Newt’s mouth slides along his dick his muscles clench tight as a wire. “Fuck.” A live wire. A live wire holding ten thousand pounds and coursing with electricity. His hands dive back into Newt’s hair to mess it up more. “I’m really close.” His voice is wrecked. Newt does that thing Thomas loves where he curves his tongue when he reaches the tip. It makes Thomas’s head fall back against the couch and his eyes roll up and shut. “ _Holyshitdothatagain_.” 

Newt does. It feels too good. Thomas’s whole body shivers. The muscles in his thighs shake under Newt’s hands. It’s a feather’s touch short of painful, and honestly a bit embarrassing how little it takes to get him to the edge when Newt is blowing him. He looks down to see Newt staring at him, eyes mischievous. Newt quirks an eyebrow playfully and swallows him down completely. He hits the back of Newt’s throat and that’s it, he’s gone. The heat slides up the back of Thomas’s legs to pool just below his stomach with an insistent ache. “ _ShitshitshitNewt_.” Newt swallows again, it’s wet and warm and makes every nerve in his body sing. 

His lips make the shape of Newt’s name. 

-

“When did the sun start setting?” Newt mumbles eventually after they’d rearranged themselves back on the couch. Newt’s got his arm thrown across his face to cover his eyes, shirt still on and unbuttoned and splayed out on the leather like wings from his sprawl. Thomas had dragged his pants back up, once again poured overtop of Newt’s thin frame, head pillowed on a collarbone and the occasional aftershock making him shudder. In the background dinosaurs roared, and life found a way, and a happy content sigh escaped from his mouth, another shudder made Newt hum with satisfaction, his hand giving an absent squeeze of Thomas’s shoulder.

“While we were busy.” Thomas points out with a shit eating grin, pulling himself closer to Newt’s limp body and plucking a piece of a california roll out of the takeout container. 

“M’not complaining, just pointing out that,” Newt gestures to himself. The california roll was brazenly stolen, chewed, swallowed. “My suit’s been debauched. _I’ve_ been debauched.” 

Thomas kisses him soundly, a tiny piece of roe stuck on his lips adding a burst of salt. “This sounds a lot like complaining.” 

“Hmm.” Newt’s hand rests at the dip of his lower back, playing lazily with the back pocket of Thomas’s jeans, tugging him closer and mouthing at his jaw. Thomas felt the occasional nip of teeth. “What’s this?” Pulling out the small folded piece of paper with ‘Dickhead’ scrawled across the front. “Brenda I assume?” 

“Oh.” Thomas yawned into Newt’s neck, hair tickling his nose. “Brenda’s seance.” 

“And why didn’t I get an invite considering how instrumental I’ve been? Have I fallen out of favor?” 

Thomas nuzzled, if possible, closer. “Oh my god.” Putting on a _terrible_ imitation of Newt’s accent. “‘Fallen out of favor’ you’re _so_ British sometimes- _ow_ I thought we said no pinching? And no, you haven’t ‘fallen out of favor’- _ow_! No pinching! She needs mortals, apparently, for the pentagram. Four of us. Teresa, obviously. And then she roped in Harriet and me n’ Min.”

“I’m just as mortal as the rest of you.” Newt says, tucking the paper back in his pocket and grinning. “Mostly.” 

“Yeah but,” He kisses Newt to take any sting out of the words, a loud smack of lips that had the recipient smiling wide. “All your weird reaper mumbo-jumbo would cross the signals or something. Besides, Chuck flies in that day so I’m going to drop him off here before I go to the freaky ghost-phone call.” 

“Bet Chuck’ll be _thrilled_ about that.” 

Thomas’s face pulls into a frown. “My whole family is obsessed with you. Dad’s been telling me to lock you down since the first time he met you. And that was _before_ I came out. Chuck _loves_ you.” 

Newt’s smile is so softly pleased it makes his throat closed. 

Setting orange sunlight streamed through the window. Thomas could hear people walking on the street three stories down like they had no idea someone like Newt existed. And not in the Reaper way, no, in the _Newt_ way. The funny sarcastic _Newt_ that was too kind and charming to ever realize that he made everyone in the room fall in love with him the minute he stepped inside. Magic might make it a bit more visible, but Thomas knows without a doubt that Newt always would have glowed.

“Chuck does love me.” Newt agrees, arms gathering him up, thin and strong and squeezing him in the most wonderful way. “But I’m pretty sure half the reason that he’s even coming to this monstrosity of a party is to spend time with _you_. I think the _other_ half of why he came was so that you’d _finally_ take a day off, and even _that_ was a battle.” 

Thomas let out a disagreeable hum, opening his mouth to receive the piece of sushi being dangled in front of his nose, nibbling at the pale fingers doing the offering. So much for not biting the hand that feeds. 

“Yeah, well, Chuck can sulk all he wants.” Thomas breaths out, letting his forehead fall back onto Newt’s chest, tracing the bones of his sternum with his nose, the skin finally warm. Letting out a yawn that, by cosmic destiny, was timed _perfectly_ with the T-Rex’s triumphant roar on the TV screen. He settled his cheek against a strong heartbeat. “It’s not like I’m bringing my little brother to a _real_ seance.”

-

On Wednesday he checks his phone before picking up, but it doesn’t make a difference. 

“What do you mean _bring him along_?” Thomas hissed, turning to wave at Chuck a few feet away as he waited in line at the airport's Starbucks. Chuck pulled his classic ‘Why are you freaking out _now_?’ face but was thankfully too far away to hear the conversation over the din of a busy domestic-arrivals terminal and Thomas hunches over his phone to whisper venom into the ear of someone who could probably quite literally hex him. “Are you fucking crazy? He doesn’t even know _anything_.”

“ _I could hex you, you know that right_?” Brenda sighs through the phone, and Thomas reminds himself to stop clenching his jaw. The overhead speakers blared an announcement about delays. He put his finger in his other ear to block it out momentarily. Rips it out of his ear because his ring was still on and _shit shit shit_ -shoves the thing in his shirt’s pocket.

“What happened to Harriet? Why can’t she do it?” Thomas whined, tone completely at odds with the fake smile plastered on his face and the wave he was giving to Chuck, who’s ‘Oh my god Thomas’ look was steadily drifting into his ‘What the fuck Thomas’ look. 

An irritated raspberry blown through the phone speakers makes it static out for a second and he winces, turning the volume down rapidly. “ _Harriet ended up staying at the hospital because there was some kind of once in a lifetime surgery that she just had to see. Does she not realize I’m going to be speaking with the other side? That I’m going to literally be plucking wandering spirits from the beyond_?”

Chuck bounces up to him, a coffee tray in one hand and a rolling suitcase in the other, offering Thomas the most adorable baby-brother grin possible and chirping _much_ too innocently “Who’s that?”

“Brenda.” Thomas says absently to Chuck before he thinks about the ramifications. The airport bustled around them and the sound of wheeled suitcases on linoleum floors drilled into his brain.

“ _Yeah, what_?” 

“No-I was just-”

“Oh cool! Hi Brenda!” 

“ _Tell the kid I wanna see him._ ” 

Thomas might pull his hair out. Would Newt still love him if he had a bald patch? He turns away slightly, hissing into the phone. “Bren I’m _not_ bringing him to this. I remember the whole candle shit show. And that thing with the rose bushes and the police officer? In the west end? I _know_ that was you even if you won’t admit it.” 

With a loud slurp from his iced coffee straw Chuck flashes another grin. “I wanna go hang out with Brenda. Is Teresa there? Are you guys doing cool artsy drugs because you’re all artsy?” 

“ _Tell him yes, it’ll get him here quicker_.” 

“I’m not telling him that!” His phone was in danger in his clenched fist. The faint crackle of a smartphone screen under considerable force cautioned him into sucking in a deep breath and trying to go to his happy place where alarm clocks didn’t sound out until noon. 

( _Fuck_ he was tired)

“ _Come on Thomas, it’s fine_.” Brenda’s voice, even over the phone, held a whisper of genuine vulnerability, and Thomas squeezed his eyes closed. He had a hint of an idea why she would be eager to learn how to contact the dead. 

Brenda had mentioned to him once offhandedly that she’d always been annoyed on Mother’s Day when she was buying a bouquet to bring to a small wooded cemetery two hours outside of the city with Jorge. It was frustrating, she admitted, that neither she or Jorge had known what her mother’s favorite flower had been.

“Okay.” Thomas sighed, putting his hand over Chuck’s mouth when he gave a whoop. “We’ll be there in half a hour and-oh crap I’m about to run out of time on my parking pass.” 

-

“ _Awesome_.” Chuck says as they step into Brenda and Teresa’s apartment. And yeah, awesome was one word for it.

The usually cheerfully bright loft was plunged into shadows, curtains pulled tight against the afternoon sun, blocking any outside light. The small circular wooden table in the living room covered with deep purple cloth, rough cut stones and gems that glittered ominously, candles burning bright in a five point pentagram arrangement. On the table there was also a sprig of mint, a rough copper key, and a flower that smells like liquorice. 

On a shelf directly behind the blair-witch-scene they’d stumbled into was Teresa’s collection of battered childhood Archie comics. Mildly disorienting. Their apartment was a strange combination of the thrift shop that Jorge owned and Teresa’s parents' rustic cottage. Lots of birch bark furniture and knick knacks that looked like they would leap up and bite you. Thomas examined a strange hanging stone carving of a dragon on the wall with trepidation. 

Already seated at the table was Minho, chin propped on his fist. Giving a bright flash of a grin and waving Chuck over, patting the seat next to him. “C’mere kid, tell me all about school.” Chuck disappears from Thomas’s side in a roadrunner dust cloud and he tries to not feel jealous. Wasn’t his little brother supposed to hero worship _him_?

“Finally.” Brenda sighed, popping her head out from the kitchen, a strange battery acid smell billowing through the doorway. “Here, hold this.” She shoves a faintly steaming mason jar filled with blue liquid into his hand. Ah, he’d found where the smell came from, and it definitely wasn’t a comfort the way the jar shocked his fingertips with static and made the hair on his arm stand on end. 

“So what’s actually happening here?” Thomas asks, looking over to see Teresa at the table as well, laughing at one of Chuck’s frosh week stories. There was another new legal pad thrown haphazardly on the couch behind them.

“Oh, so,” Brenda balanced a second jar in Thomas’s arms. “I needed four people to form the different points of connection, and I’m using it as a tether to help pull someone from the other side close enough to talk to us. A relative, hopefully, because it’s a blood spell. It’ll still work with Chuck because he’s got your blood. Pretty casual. I just need to get the feel of it and then I can do it on my own.” 

For just a second Thomas wants to ask where in the _hell_ Brenda got his blood from, but then he remembers the invitation. Jesus, there needed to be some kind of fine print to magic and spells. 

“Pretty casual.” Thomas agrees faintly instead of diving into a potential debate about clauses of intent in terms of witchcraft. They take the last two seats at the table and Brenda arranges the smoking liquids to her satisfaction. Dante swoops out of the shadows, landing to perch lightly on Brenda’s shoulder and giving a musical chirp. 

“Sucks that Harriet had to bail.” Minho offers around his impressive slouch. 

Brenda let out an annoyed grumble sound, scowling as she poked things into different positions seemingly at random. She sighed. “It’d be a lot more irritating if she wasn’t going to cure cancer or fix all the broken bones in the world or some stupid shit like that.” She turned a triangular opal stone onto a different side. Dante fluttered down onto the table, looking at the opal with his head twitching all directions in the unsettling way birds' heads do. Brenda flipped the gem back and Dante whistled happily, reaching out with his tiny raptor clawed feet and tugging it two inches to the left before flapping his wings up in a half jump back to Brenda’s shoulder.

“Thanks D.” Brenda adds absently while checking the notes of her grimoire, the thick leather bound book open beside her and still mostly empty. “Okay we all have to hold hands.” 

“This is so cool Bren.” Chuck says, taking the offered hands as they form a small connected circle around the table. “Think anything will actually happen? I totally believe in all of this stuff too, Thomas kept saying in the car over that you were an ‘actual witch’ and I was like, yeah, duh. This stuff is real. You know I saw a ghost once? It was at camp and-”

“Chuck that _wasn’t_ what I meant and you _didn’t_ see a ghost-”

“Thomas is just a spoilsport.” Brenda says with a toss of her hair, focusing on the candle and letting out a deep breath. The light from the flame reflected in her eyes, flashing them red. “Okay, I gotta concentrate. Think welcoming thoughts.” 

Thomas thought mostly about how Teresa’s palms were kind of sweaty and if he could bribe Newt into making a bolognese sauce tonight for dinner. Maybe if he _really_ begged Newt would put olives in it, which he knows is weird but likes anyways. 

Nothing happens. 

Brenda lets out a small tutting noise. “ _More_ welcoming.” 

Thomas resists rolling his eyes, trying to be _more welcoming_.

(Which, honestly? He’s not good at it. He’s seen enough horror movies to know that any second now a creepy doll is going to appear in the corner and turn it’s glassy eyes to look at them blankly, although, god, Thomas knows that Teresa still has a few of her old beanie babies around somewhere, and wouldn’t _that_ just be his life, to die by possessed beanie baby.) 

He’s actually looking around for the stuffed nineties nostalgia-inducing toys when he notices a framed picture on the wall, one from when Brenda and Teresa had gone to Amsterdam a year ago. They looked so _happy_ , posing for the camera with their huge backpacks and worn out sneakers. He smiled, genuine warmth blooming through his chest. He closes his eyes. 

The candle flame flickers behind his eyelids. There was a brief gust of wind. Something inside of them connected, invisible string winding around his chest and _tugging_. Teresa inhales sharply like a secret. Thomas experiences the hair-raising sensation of another person sitting down at the table without anyone else _actually sitting down at the table_. 

“Holy _shit_.” Brenda breathed, a sound of surprised pleasure that didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Teresa’s hand clenched Thomas’s. Minho’s quiet swear sounds a lot like son of a witch. 

Thomas opens his eyes. Chuck is staring at him from across the table, absolutely _beaming_. 

“Look at you, all grown up.” Chuck says in a voice that isn’t his but is undeniably familiar. “My schatzi.” The hairs on the back of Thomas’s neck stand up. He has a sudden flash of memory, the echo of being no taller than a knee and big familiar wrinkled liver spotted hands picking him up to soar up into the air and tell him how _tall_ he was getting. 

And then he's wrenched out of the warm childhood memory by Chuck face-planting onto the table like someone had turned his power switch off. 

Which, to Thomas, really didn’t feel casual, like how this whole thing was supposed to go. 

“Huh.” Brenda says calmly, flipping back a page or two in her spell book. Which, actually, feels pretty casual, which is exactly what this situation wasn’t. 

“ _Chuck_?” The table clatters as Thomas jumps up, rushing to him. “Brenda what’s happening?” 

Minho’s arms pinwheel in an attempt to stop his chair from falling over when Teresa jumps up as well, calmly but quickly going to Chuck’s other side. “Bren? He okay?” She helps Thomas prop Chuck back into his chair. He looks peacefully asleep, nothing more. His face lax and calm, eyes twitching under his lids. 

The flip of Brenda’s notebook pages is loud and ominous. “Yes. Um. He’s okay. He might have just…” Brenda’s finger trailed down the notes. “Been a bit _too_ welcoming.” The strangled animal noise coming from Thomas’s lips is a cross between a rabbits scream and a cartoon sound effect. 

“Aww.” Teresa cupped her hand to her cheek and cradled her elbow in her other palm, looking down at Chuck with a loving smile. “He really is just the _sweetest_ kid.” Thomas might burst a blood vessel. 

“The sweetest _possessed_ kid.” Minho points out with a dry tone and an eyebrow raise. 

Thomas’s tongue was trying to strangle his tonsils. “ _Possessed-_ ” 

“He’s not possessed!” Brenda’s finger shot up in a ‘hold on there buddy’ motion. “I bet it’s an ancestor of yours Thomas. Chuck just had a pass through, he’s good. The spirit just kinda did a bit of a...drive-by haunting. Kind of. This is fine. He’s good, it’s all good.”

“ _A_ _drive-by haunt_ -Chuck? _Chuck_?” Thomas whisper-shouts in an increasingly high tone, shaking his brother’s shoulder gently. Chuck’s eyes flutter open and Thomas groans in relief before face planting onto the desk in a copycat moment, hand still gripping Chuck’s shoulder.

Chuck pushed him away with a confused frown. “What? I’m fine.” He notices the way the four of them were bug eyed staring back like it was a school trip to the zoo and he was behind the glass. “What? What’s wrong with you guys? Did I fall asleep? I fell asleep, didn’t I? That’s so embarrassing, god, sorry. Finals destroyed me, I had to take this horrible biology course as a prereq.” 

Teresa frowns. “Did you use those flashcards I sent you?” 

For just a solitary moment Thomas wants to point out that flashcards are, just maybe, _not the issue here_ , because his baby brother had just gone full exorcist and if Thomas woke up to Chuck climbing the walls upside down he was definitely going to be _miffed_ to say the least. Brenda was already scribbling notes in the margins of her grimoire, muttering about focalizing energies and elemental arrangements. Minho was trying to coax Dante onto his finger. So Thomas decides that this was a huge success and to never fucking ever do it again. 

Brenda pulled Thomas aside just before they left like they were whispering conspirators. She’s a bit pale, but there’s an excited light to her eyes. “So, he’s gonna have some imprint left from whoever passed through him, nothing big, but he might crave weird foods or have kinda glitchy moments for the next few days.” 

“An imprint?” Thomas asks flatly. Brenda raises her eyebrows and smiles, wide and toothy and somehow a combination of threatening and apologetic at the same time. Thomas lets a long, lingering, _suffering_ breath out of flared nostrils. “Okay, was that you, the thing in the west end with the rose bushes?” 

Brenda looks at him contemplatively, narrowing her eyes and measuring her options like any good witch. “If I tell you, will you forgive me for getting Chuck possessed?” 

Thomas contemplates the offer. “...yes.” 

Brenda smiles. “Okay, yeah, it was me.” 

“I _knew_ it!” 

Brenda put her finger to her lips and winked as she pushed him out the door after Chuck. 

“Hey,” Chuck says as they’re driving home in Newt’s old white car that made ominous coughing noises if you shifted gears too fast. After a particularly loud belch from the engine Thomas pats the Camero’s dashboard, sends it a silent apology and plea to hold out for a bit longer. Finally _finally_ Newt and him were starting to move from ‘broke ass students that survive’ towards ‘broke ass young people that can actually afford some stuff’ but there was a big asterisk on the whole thing that went a little something like ‘but only if there aren’t any kind of car issues that need repairing, you fucking fools’. 

“Hey,” Chuck says again and Thomas blinks, snapping out of his car-repair fears. 

“What’s up Chuck? And get your feet off the dashboard, this isn’t your living room.”

Chuck chokes on a laugh and doesn't take his feet off the dash. Younger brothers. “Dude you sound _just_ like Dad.” 

“ _What_?” Thomas curves the turn too fast in his denial. “No I don’t!” He tugs absently at the collar of his shirt, another one of his new mildly trendy adult button up numbers, checking the rear view mirror subtly to make sure that the hickey Newt had given him this morning was covered. 

“You do so-whatever, anyways. You remember those cabbage rolls that grandma used to make? She’d always be all,” He puts on a terrible accent. “You know, ‘Zees are family recipe from old country and you're great-great-great-whatever made best in village’ and she’d always put that special rice in them?” Thomas nods and Chuck wiggles down into his seat to slump, letting out a big yawn. “I’m craving them so _much_ all of the sudden and I can’t figure out why.” 

Thomas’s hands spasm on the steering wheel. Newt takes pity on him and puts olives in the bolognese. 


	3. Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for how long it took to get this last chapter up, I've been swamped with school work and completely bowled over by online midterms, which are the absolute worst. Throw in some pesky insomnia and you've got a recipe for no motivation what-so-ever. But it's finally up and Happy Birthday is officially done!

For the first time since he’d started his job, Thomas takes a day off. _Two_ days off, actually. He’d been nervous to request it, but when he’d gone to the director weeks ago, shifting from foot to foot and showing that the other assistants could cover everything he needed to do for the Thursday and Friday he wanted, the director had laughed and waved him away. 

_Apparently_ Thomas had more than earned a few days off, and he might have a bit of a workaholic problem. 

(“Apparently.” Newt had said dryly when Thomas had indignantly told him about the experience over dinner.)

Thursday morning was bright and chilly. A light rain misting against the windows. Burrowing back down under the sheets seems like the most reasonable option, so Thomas drifts for the better part of an hour listening to the tap of rain on the window while Newt played with his hair, scratching steady soothing lines through his scalp. 

When Thomas gets out of bed and wanders down the hall with apprehension, it’s because he’s maybe not ready to deal with a twenty-four-hour-post-possession brother and whatever that might look like. The thought makes him pause at the edge of the hallway.

He’s got this. He’s brave. He’s the hero of his own fucking story. Even if Chuck was possessed with the devil himself he’d _never_ hurt Thomas. He rocks on his heels at the edge of the doorway before turning the corner. 

“Why do you have your old hockey stick?”

“No reason.” Thomas says, quickly putting his hockey stick down from it’s slightly raised position as Chuck stares at him from the couch. Chuck wrinkles up his nose to convey just how little he believes that statement. 

“Okay, well.” Chuck yawns, wiggles down until he’s flopped back on the couch in all of his twenty year old lazy glory. “Whatever.” Chuck got all the easy going genes and Thomas got all the anxiety. 

Little brothers, getting all the good things since the dawn of time. 

“Hey,” Chuck rifled through the backpack by his feet as Thomas flopped onto the couch next to him. “I got you something.” Thomas holds out his hand for the messily wrapped present. The wrapping paper screamed back ‘It’s a girl!’ in bright pink letters. 

There’s a thrill of fear so deep inside him that Thomas sends a silent apology to his parents for the time he was sixteen and told them Teresa and him had started to date. 

“Um, Chuck?”

Chuck takes in his thunderstruck face and bursts out laughing. “ _No_ dude. It’s just the wrapping paper my roommate had. His big sister is having a baby.” He scowls. “Also, dude. Please. You think _I’d_ go all gender norms? No, come on,” He tugs on one taped corner in an attempt to get Thomas to start. “I just didn’t want to spend twelve bucks on wrapping paper. Open it.” 

Thomas opens it. “Um,” He holds up the small box, plucking out the tiny keychain with a misshapen blob on the end that might be a zebra. It looked like it was made out of play-dough and left to harden.“Thanks?” 

Chuck scoffs and rolls his eyes. “It’s a clapperboard. Because, you know. You're gonna be a big director some day. My roommate's really into arts and crafts so I used some of his molding clay or whatever.”

Thomas watches Chuck scratch at his curls that he'd inherited from their father through slightly misty vision and then suddenly pulls Chuck into a rough hug. “Thanks Chuck.” His words are rough enough that he needs to clear his throat. 

Little brothers, making big brothers want to burst into tears since the dawn of time. 

With a sound like a raspberry Chuck gives him a final squeeze and then elbows him off, snatching up the remote and flicking through the channels. “I need new clothes dude. There’s this _really_ cute girl at my work that’s got all these cool clothes thrifting and…” He trails off, looking at Thomas expectantly.

Thomas raises his eyebrows, a grin unfurling. “And?” He draws the word out. After all the warm feelings some light teasing was required. Chuck lets out a pained groan.

“So are you taking me to your old store today or what?” 

“It’s Brenda’s store.” 

“I thought her dad owned it? That guy Jorge?”

Thomas thought of the scorch mark above the cash register that he hadn’t actually looked at in ages, but knew without a doubt would never be painted over. “It’s Brenda’s store.” 

So Thomas takes Chuck to Scorched Earth for clothing thrifting (to Brenda’s delight) and then to the city's natural history museum with Minho. 

And Chuck was mostly fine, no real ill-effects from the momentary possession besides a craving for cabbage rolls. He’d called their bewildered mom begging for the recipe. Newt and him had made them for dinner last night while Thomas tried particularly hard not to straight up float with happiness over the way that they clearly adored each other.

They do tourist things, sightseeing with Chuck, and Thomas realizes with a burst of warmth that he’d flown into the city as a kid afraid to ride the subway and somewhere along the way he’d shed his childhood like a snake with a too-small skin. 

A snake that could now not only ride the subway, but when the blaring overhead speakers announced a delay in unintelligible public-transit-speak-and-static, a snake that could turn to their little brother and say with a smile, “No worries, we’ll just hop on the east twenty seven bus and transfer to the red line.” 

While they’re at the museum looking at skeletons of dinosaurs Thomas sees two fathers leading a small boy by each hand, the toddler speaking in warp-speed kid-babble that sounded like gibberish to Thomas but both men seemed to follow effortlessly, nodding along and responding in the gaps made by the toddler’s need to breathe. 

One thing at a time.

With a mental kick to the shin Thomas looks determinedly down at the plaque in front of him that describes the _wildly_ interesting fact about how the Brontosaurus had much longer ribs than other types of diplodocids. 

It’s not _quite_ an insult when the most exciting part of the day is the fact that Chuck actually gets served at the bar, a gleeful smile as he stares down at his pint a bigger give away than anything else. “Dude.” Chuck whispers, taking a sip of his beer like it’s a ten thousand dollar vintage. “I can’t believe my fake worked.” 

Thomas snorts. “It didn’t. Mary’s just taking pity on you. Plus we’re in here all the time I think we're like her best customers-wait, that sounds bad. Don’t tell mom that.” 

Minho swipes the I.D card up from the table that he’d propped both his elbows on, closing one eye and squinting at it like a diamond buyer. “It’s not bad though. What kind of success rate are we talking about here, forty-sixty?”

Chuck wipes his beer foam moustache from his upper lip with the back of his hand, making him look roughly twelve, and says agreeably “More like thirty-seventy.” 

With a ding of a bell the door opens and the blustery spring day rushes in with fresh chilled air. Thomas texts Newt to meet them after the collection he was currently on, and Newt slides into the booth half an hour later muttering about traffic and the evils of suburban cul-de-sacs. Thomas looks forward to hearing the story later. 

Brenda shows up with a light to her eyes that Thomas has never seen before. She makes a beeline for the register where Mary and her speak in low tones in a corner behind the actual bar. When Mary squeezes Brenda’s shoulder lovingly, in clear congratulations, Brenda smiles like a thousand watt bulb. There’s a sudden undeniable fragrance of wildflowers, as if the entire cafe had been filled with them only seconds ago and they’d simply popped out of existence. A few people at tables actually look up, frowning and sniffing with confused head tilts. 

It’s all fun and games and drinking and laughing until Newt gives Thomas a look over the table and a squeeze on the knee under the table. They end up in the cleaning supplies closet in the basement between the bathrooms and the walk in freezer. Messy kissing turns into more when Newt shoves a leg between Thomas’s thighs for him to grind against while whispering about what he’s going to do to Thomas on their honeymoon. Thomas almost comes in his pants like a teenager. 

(Plus he maybe develops an intense and complex relationship with Mr. Clean, which is definitely going to come up in therapy, once he can afford to start going to therapy.)

While they’re straightening their clothes and slipping back out into the hall looking exactly as conspicuous as they are, Fry walks past with a huge crate of beer and a knowing smirk on his way to the storage room. “Seriously,” He says, shaking his head. “What is _up_ with you two these days.” 

By the time they get home Teresa’s already in their apartment with a legal pad. Thomas doesn’t ask how she got in.

-

Waking up without the jarring buzz of an alarm feels a bit like floating up towards the surface of a warm bath. Thomas breathes in the scent of coffee that Chuck’s must’ve been the one to make, the smell cartoonishly drifting down the hall and past the closed bedroom door with beckoning fingers. 

It’s a battle to lift his head off the pillow, belly down and face smashed into the soft fabric in a way that should give him a sore neck but never does. Newt was still asleep next to him. Long and loose limbed, one ankle hooked around his own. Thomas takes a minute to just look at the tiny patches of blonde stubble on Newt’s chin, the hair turned transparent in the morning light. Newt couldn’t grow a beard, not if his life depended on it. It’s such a strange fact to trigger the rush of affection in Thomas’s chest, something so little and unimportant. 

There are ups and downs to everything. Newt and him had gone through them. There had been fights and low points, going to bed facing away from each other with tense shoulders and long talks that ended in angry half bitten off words. There had been times where everything was magic, like when they had gone to the aquarium and it had been practically deserted, the whole place theirs alone. They’d kissed in front of the floor to ceiling glass tank filled with tropical fish that swam dizzying contrast neon colors in the blue of the water. Thomas’s heart had been in danger of leaping out of his chest. 

The blonde stubble bobs with Newt’s adam's apple from a sleepy cough that triggers a tiny avalanche of grumbles. Dark eyes flutter open to find Thomas’s face and instantly warm. “Time’sit?” Newt’s fingers reach up, smooth the hair that Thomas can feel stuck to his forehead. 

“Almost eleven.” 

The bones in Newt’s back pop with a satisfying sound as he stretches, before kissing Thomas firmly on the mouth. “We’ve got somewhere to be at two.” He sighs before pulling the covers back up to his chin in a clear indication of what he planned on doing until that time. Thomas burrows deeper into Newt’s neck, inhales the smell of his skin and tries to remember the still mile-long list of things that had to be done and whatever task on that list that Newt was referring too. 

It wasn’t anything with school, no big assignments left until the exam and all of his tutorial lesson plans centered around review for the final. It wasn’t work, because he’d planned and scheduled his absence to within an inch of his life in some kind of guilt-complex frenzy over taking a day off, despite working weekends for the past month. Not Chuck, he was going to spend the afternoon at Thomas’s old campus looking for a source in the school's main library. 

The party then. It had to be something with the engagement-birthday-let’s-host-it-at-Thomas’s-apartment- _thanks_ -Teresa-party that would be taking place tomorrow night. Picking up canapés, maybe. Polishing the wood floors too, or it could be rearranging the furniture for more standing space that the twenty plus people packing into their home tomorrow night would need. 

Maybe Teresa had finally run out of legal pads and needed them to get more. 

Whatever it was, Thomas takes another deep breath of Newt and plans to enjoy every second of lazing around in bed before he has to start functioning like a human again. “Where’s it exactly that we need to be?”

“The movies.” 

Thomas raises his head with a smile creeping and a jump of excitement in his chest. “Yeah?” 

“Mhm.” Newt cups his face in the tiny warm world under the sheets that’s theirs alone. “I’ve got you for the whole afternoon. Just us. Matinee. Original Alien movie. Figured you could use a breather.” 

There were highs and lows. There were times where they went to bed angry and sharp words got bitten off. There were times where everything was magical glittery glowing romance and Thomas’s heart felt like it would leap out of his chest from a single kiss.

But then there were times where it was just the two of them holding hands in a dark movie theater eating buttery overpriced popcorn that makes their rings slippery on their fingers while they watch eighties-era special effects. 

And it’s perfect.

-

It takes right up until after the movie for it to fully sink in for Thomas that Newt’s _parents_ were coming to the party tomorrow night. Newt’s parents that were, technically, (though they didn’t know it yet) his in-laws to be. It had spiraled Thomas into a state of fidgeting where he’d sit down, try to watch something, only to get up a few minutes later and adjust a lamp slightly on the way to get a drink. Absently polish a glass surface with the sleeve of his shirt on the way back. 

But then he’d gotten a bit distracted with the way Newt looked whenever he lifted something heavy while they’re rearranging the furniture for more standing space, the long lean muscles on his arms straining through his black t-shirt, messy blonde hair just a touch sweaty at his temples and looking like some kind of moving-guy fantasy that teenage Thomas might've tried to suppress. 

Chuck was out drinking with some old high school friend thinking he had everyone fooled, and Thomas was pretending that he didn’t know that Chuck was out drinking. 

Which meant that Thomas and Newt were alone. 

So, you know.

“Okay, seriously, what the fuck is up with you two?” Gally sighs when he walks through the door to find Newt and Thomas making out furiously on top of the kitchen island, plates and fruit and cutlery scattered across the floor from when Thomas had swept it all off to make room to lift Newt up onto the counter. “Also, what the fuck is that smell?”

“This is our _fucking_ apartment.” Thomas snaps out, exasperated and flushed and regretfully peeling himself off of Newt while redoing the top three buttons of his shirt. “And it’s cabbage rolls.” He adds as a defensive afterthought. It was a family recipe after all. 

“Yeah well,” Gally places the box on the ground with a delicate ‘thwump’. “Your ‘ _fucking apartment_ ’ needs these new soft light lightbulbs, according to Teresa.” 

“Well that’s kind of her.” Newt says mildly, smoothing his hair back into place from where it’d been sticking up wild.

And because they’re a power couple, a perfect synergetic partnership, basically winning at _everything_ relationship based, Newt silently starts to change the lightbulbs so Thomas can apply himself properly to the task of fighting with Gally. 

Apparently, setting up a party for a fancy-engagement-birthday-party-lets-have-it-at-Thomas’s- _thanks_ -Teresa is a lot of work and requires a lot of people. 

Minho shows up an hour later to be unhelpful. Sonya shows up an hour after _that_ to be helpful, brandishing a ceramic bowl filled with dirt and a sprouting snake plant. Harriet shows up thirty minutes later to be helpful as well, but then falls asleep on the couch in her scrubs, impervious to the laughter and conversations around her. Newt drapes a blanket over her and tucks it under her chin while she sleep-talks about appendix removal. Chuck stumbles in soon after, hiccuping and red cheeked and so clearly trying unbelievably hard to act one-third of the intoxicated that he actually is. Minho, in solidarity, _of course_ , starts doing shots to catch up. 

“Oh she appears.” Thomas mumbles from his spot leaning against the hallway wall with arms crossed. His surly posture is ruined by the smile, lips jumping up involuntarily in the way that only a lifelong best friend could illicit. Teresa kicks off her shoes and shoots him a look, suddenly an inch shorter without the heels that matched the whole blouse and pencil skirt thing she had going on. 

“You’re in fine form tonight.” She bundles her hair on top of her head in a messy bun that makes her a strange combination of teenage-Teresa and adult-Teresa. She sniffs the air. “You made your mom’s cabbage rolls?” 

“Long story.” Thomas grumbles, shifting and recrossing his arms. 

She reaches up and pats his cheek. “You can grumble but I know you're having fun. This is good for you. You needed to take a break.” 

“And how is filling my house with people helping me take a break?” 

“You took two days off, didn’t you?” Her eyebrows scream of judgement. Thomas mouths wordlessly for a second and she pats his cheek again like a dotting grandmother. 

“You’re kinda scary, you know that right?” He says weakly. 

With a rattle and a clatter Teresa digs through the large long strapped purse hanging down by her thigh. “I know. I can only stay for a minute-where the fuck-I’m meeting Bren at home in half a hour.” Teresa looks up, eyes suddenly dark and unreadable. “Her seance is tonight. She's gotten everything ready and she doesn't want to wait anymore. She's really excited, and all I keep thinking about is how she'll feel if it doesn't work.” 

In the silence the swell of their friends voices fill the chill in the air with warmth. 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

There’s a scuff on the wall that Thomas notices. He rubs absently at it with his thumb, maybe getting rid of the grime but maybe just spreading it around enough to make it indiscernible.

It hangs in between them, the weight of what Brenda was trying to do. Suddenly it occurs to Thomas that maybe Teresa wasn’t so much trying to throw a good party, (although he’d grudgingly admit she’s succeeded) as much as she was trying to be very busy and very organized, because that’s what made Teresa feel _better_. 

“Think she’d mind if I called her to wish her good luck later?” Thomas asks, rubbing lightly at the spot on the wall even though the mark has completely disappeared. He looks up to Teresa thanking him silently with a specific turn up of her lips. 

“I think she’d like that.” 

Thomas reaches out, tugs gently on a curl of her hair lovingly. She bats his hand away with an exhale through her nose that doubles as laughter. 

Sometimes people will tear holes in the world to find words from loved ones. 

Sometimes there are no words to find.

Sometimes you don’t need words at all.

-

By the time all of the helpful-helpers and not-helpful-helpers and wanted-to-help-but-fell-asleep-helpers had left,Thomas’s stress plant watering had reached levels of care usually reserved for bomb disarmament. He pauses from appraising a snake plant on a bookcase to catch Newt around the arm as he’s walking past and checks the time on the watch around Newt’s wrist. Nine-thirty. 

The city outside the bay window was dark geometric shapes and tiny uniform yellow squares. Chuck had gone to bed twenty minutes ago. Thomas was fairly sure, (through experience) that Chuck was suffering from the evening hangover so common of day-drinking-benders. 

“You know you could always just get one of your own.” Newt points out mildly as Thomas runs his thumb over the glass face of Newt’s watch. It’s unfair, really, how Newt can make a black sweater and ripped jeans look put together enough to match the elegant timepiece. 

“Nah. I’m all about the twenty-first century. Besides,” Thomas let him go. “Yours is nicer than anything I’ll buy.” 

“Mmm.” Newt adds instead of words, opening the fridge door and trying to see around the huge platters stacked to the ceiling. Trays and trays of shiny aluminum packed full of appetizers stare back at Newt accusingly. “I just want my yogurt.” He started to dig. “Jesus, how many people are _coming_ to this thing?” He opens the top half of the appliance to check the freezer. “ _Jesus_.” He closes it with disgust and starts in on the fridge again. “It’s like a bloody _warehouse_ in here.”

“Raiders of the Lost Yogurt.” Thomas mumbles absently while he typed out a quick message. His phone dings almost instantly. “I’m going to go call Brenda. Do you have any smokes?” 

Newt straightens up front behind the fridge door with suspicious eyes. “No.” There was a magnet on the fridge from their trip to England for Christmas last year. A horrible tacky cartoon bulldog holding a Union Jack heart in its mouth. Newt snorted every time he saw it. 

“Liar.” Thomas absently checked the soil dampness of a small mason jar Peperomia that rested on the kitchen counter with his pinky finger. 

Newt dives back into the fridge. “Why do you need a smoke-that I’m not saying I have by the way-to go call Brenda?”

“She’s gonna try her seance thing tonight.” 

Newt straightens again, balancing an arm on the fridge door. His face is different. Calmer, more torn. “That’s tonight?” Thomas nods. Newt sighs and makes no move to resume digging through food trays, staring into the appliance like it held all the answers. Neither of them comment on the fact that although Brenda had never said, they both knew who she’d want to speak with most. 

Thomas moves closer, the fridge door between them an annoying cold barrier. The edge cuts into his stomach. Newt reaches up and cups his face, thumb tracing his lip. 

“Newt I dunno what to say to her.” Newt always had a way of helping Thomas feel brave enough to pick the words he needed. 

“I think…” Newt’s thumb ran along his lip again, catching a tiny bit on the spot that Thomas had chewed at a few days ago. Newt had once confessed that after they’d met he couldn’t get the shape of Thomas’s lips out of his head for days. “I think that it’s not so much about _what_ you say as the _way_ you say it. Where it comes from.” Newt’s hand slipped down to press lightly into his chest. “What Brenda’s looking for...it might not be there Tommy. Sometimes gone is just gone, grief is just grief.” Newt’s eyes search his face. 

For a second Thomas thinks he’s going to say something else, but Newt just leans over the fridge door and kisses him. It’s deep, gentle, and maybe for the first time since Thomas had discovered the glittering gold ring in a box, there’s no intention in the way their lips pressed against each other. Just warmth, a glowing kind of affection. It feels like sunlight on his skin and coming home. Everything he needs in that moment. Newt’s thumb smoothes the skin of Thomas’s cheekbones before he pulls away slowly. Their eyes flutter open and lock. “I love you Tommy. Go call her.” 

Thomas starts off down the hall with a gentle push from Newt, already looking down at his phone and trying to collect his thoughts. The phone screen stares back at him. 

“The smokes are under the dresser lamp!” Newt’s voice floats after him. Thomas’s smile is for no one, just an absent happy thing that will make the next few minutes feel easier. He’s out on the old fire escape with a smooth maneuver through the bedroom window, sitting down on the metal stairs in another. He’d done it hundreds of times. Maybe thousands of times. Before Newt had kissed him here for the first time, after he had, countless since. (They’d once, memorably, gotten a _bit_ carried away out here). 

The phone rings hollowly in his ear. He clicks the lighter, the cigarette turns cherry red between his teeth, watching the lights of the city flicker in the forever glow that hung a mile high in the sky. 

“ _Hey_.” Brenda’s voice is level, even, maybe the tiniest bit excited. 

“So? Tonight?” Thomas picks at a rust chip with his thumbnail. Balances his phone between his ear and shoulder so he can take another inhale. 

He’d quit smoking. Newt had quit smoking. 

If they both operated under the unspoken agreement that Newt would always have a pack of emergency stress cigarettes hidden somewhere, then, well, that was their business. 

Their unspoken business. 

“ _Yup._ ”

“Nervous?” 

“ _Meh_.” 

The rust chip breaks off and he pokes himself by mistake. He mouths a curse but no sound escapes. “Sure you can do it without us this time?” Thomas doesn’t want to feel the swift retribution of a ‘Are you okay?’ comment. It’d probably involve fire and brimstone. 

“ _Nah. I was just using you guys to get the feel of it. I’m good now._ ” 

“Alright.” 

There’s a long moment of silence. Thomas pops his thumb in his mouth to stop the sting of the cut. Eventually, Brenda offers “ _Teresa’s here_. _So, you know. It’s all good._ ” 

“Alright, good.” His words are short. He knows Brenda can hear the affection and the worry in the scratch of his throat. She lets out a sigh that’s like thunder over the phone call, exasperated and grateful, guarded but appreciative. Teresa had once told Thomas that she’d realized she had a ‘type’. Thomas still hadn’t figured out if it was a compliment or an insult. “Either way...you know. I’m here. Newt’s here.”

“ _I know_.” And then after another silence. “ _Thanks for calling_.”

Thomas smiled. “No problem. See you tomorrow night?” 

“ _I can’t believe you’re going to host the fucking thing_.” 

“Your girlfriend is the reason I didn’t get a choice, actually.” 

-

Thomas is man enough to admit it, the lightbulbs make a difference. He’d never actually realized how many lamps they had until they were all on at once. It was Newt’s fault, he hated overhead lighting, constantly complained it gave him a headache and that it just didn’t _feel_ right. 

Thomas drifts through his transformed apartment the same way he remembers his dad drifting through their house whenever they hosted family celebrations, moving room from room and absently scanning, getting pulled into conversations as he walks. 

The lightbulbs made the wood flooring reflect and shine and the whole apartment warmer. The ceilings, already tall, felt far away, windows stretching up with them in the pleasantly crowded large living room. There was the feeling in the air that came along with any kind of gathering for something as happy as celebrating two young people in love. 

Newt’s and Sonya’s parents were there in the corner next to the bay window with a tiny glass of champagne each, their mother also a Reaper and also as pale and fine-boned, their father dry, doting, _clearly_ at the mercy of his wife and children. They were chatting away happily with Harriet’s parents. Thomas hadn’t had a lot of chances to talk to them yet, but judging from the way that the surgical interns gawked it was pretty clear that Harriet hadn’t mentioned her particularly impressive medical pedigree. 

Sonya was beautiful in a simple black knee-length dress that, to anyone who knew her, gave her profession away. Harriet beside her in silver, hair done up in complex braids, looking like she belonged on a runway in Paris somewhere and not standing and chatting with the other interns for her surgical program, a hilarious group of gifted science dorks that could probably cure any disease known to humanity but made _Thomas_ feel like he was socially well-adjusted. 

Their friends were mixing in with work people and their families. Chuck (and fuck of course Chuck wore his converse with his suit, of fucking _course_ ) and Fry were making drinks at the set-up bar cart like witches over a cauldron. Gally was talking to Teresa, and Thomas couldn’t hear what they were saying over the fizz of champagne but it was something that made them both smile. 

Thomas slides past Minho leaning against the bookcase, gesturing wildly and chomping away at appetizers while talking to someone that Thomas was pretty sure was a demon, and also coincidentally Sonya’s secretary. And, from the way she continuously plucked tiny wrapped melon slices off of the plate that Minho held up to her, had never tried prosciutto before. 

One of the more surreal moments had been when one of the surgeon attendings that Harriet was interning for mentioned to a different attending that the apartment was so ‘Mid-twenties’ and ‘Do you remember what that was like! God! The clothes and the hidden-gem cheap restaurants and _god_ do you think that twenty-four hour steamed dumpling place off of Third is still there? How young! How boho chic!’ The woman had laughed nostalgically like some kind of 50s teeth rotting nostalgia. 

Thomas wanted to point out that, um, okay, yeah, it’s not _his_ fault that he’s good at thrift stores, he worked in one for years. And yeah, maybe Newt was a pretty trendy guy. But Newt was tall, willowy, startlingly pale and good looking, so _everything_ involving him looked trendy. And yeah, the dumpling place _was_ still there, and it’s the best in the city so of course they’re going to go after a night out drinking cheap beers in a one-word-name bar. 

But had they seen his casual-but-adult button up shirt collection? His business chinos? Thomas had a coffee maker. He graded papers with a special pen. He basically handled all of the coordinating _and_ some of the re-shoots for at least two of the movie’s pivotal scenes. He was _engaged_. (It still counted, even if no one knew it.)

Maybe Thomas didn’t need to work so hard at convincing people (and himself) he was an adult. 

His whole life had been _speed up speed up_ or _slow down slow down_ and now, for what was probably the first time, he was happy to just _be_. 

In between contemplating his life and eating a meatball on a toothpick, Thomas notices Sonya subtly checking the soil of a potted plant while she talks with her parents. When she looks pleased warmth blooms in his chest and Thomas gives himself silent permission to go out and buy himself an expensive jean jacket. One of the fashionable ones that the stars of the movie wore. 

“Hey.” 

Thomas turns as Newt stops quietly beside him, sneaking an arm around his waist and pulling them gently together. The suit hadn’t been debauched, not really. Just needed a quick steam to smooth out the wrinkles. Newt places a kiss against his cheekbone. Thomas gets a hint of cologne and a sharp refreshing citrus of burnt orange and whiskey from the drink in Newt’s hand. 

Thomas steals it and takes a sip before asking, “Do Sonya and Harriet like it?” 

“Mhm.” Newt looks around, practically glowing as he watches the people he loved most in the world laughing and celebrating. “Thanks for putting up with the circus.” They're tucked into a shadow around the corner of the hallway, not quite out of sight but decidedly private.

Thomas smiles like a fox. “Barely noticed it.” Newt squeezed his middle before starting to step away. Thomas catches his hand quickly and he stills midstep with a questioning tilt of his head. 

“I think I’m gonna hold off on the PhD. Wait a year, see how this job goes.” 

Newt's body sags in a tightly controlled exhale. “Yeah?” He’s frowning, but Thomas can tell he’s pleased. Newt’s thumb strokes the dark circles Thomas knows are under his eyes. “I’m not going to lie and say I’m not relieved.” 

“I know.” He nuzzled into Newt’s palm. “You’re right though, I’m on the fast track to burn myself ou-” Newt cuts him off with a firm kiss and then pulls back, adjusting his tie with fussy affection.

“It’s not that I don’t think you could do it Tommy I just want you to-”

“Take care of myself. Yeah, I know.” 

Newt smiles, gives a final tiny pull on his tie to straighten it and steps back. “Have you talked to Brenda?” Thomas shakes his head. 

“I didn’t even know she was here yet,” He turns, looking for her. And then when he can’t find her in the gathering of well dressed bodies and low cozy mood lighting he looks for Teresa again. He notices her sitting on the couch, smoothing out her dress and talking easily to Chuck. She didn’t seem upset, and if Brenda was upset then Teresa would be upset. 

But then again, Teresa had a hell of a poker face and this wouldn’t exactly be the time or place to express any of the feelings she might have over a failed seance.

It wasn’t exactly cocktail hour conversation. 

“Do you know if…” He trails off when Newt shakes his head. His stomach drops a tiny bit. 

“I haven’t gotten a chance to ask. I saw her slip in a few minutes ago but I haven’t spotted her since.” 

An idea pops into his head. It’s not a far leap to guess. Thomas tangles their fingers together, squeezes once. “I know where she is. I’m going to just...” 

Newt nods, kisses him again, closed lips chaste but _deep_. “Love you.”

"Love you too."

Then Newt lets him go, drifting over towards his parents. Thomas watches him and then locks eyes with Newt’s mother, who gives a knowing smile and quirks an eyebrow in a very Newt way. Thomas grins sheepishly. She mouths 'Congratulations’ clearly and he jumps like he’s gotten a static shock. Her eyebrow wiggles and she looks pointedly down at his bare ring finger. Thomas’s chest is suddenly full of champagne bubbles. His smile is so wide his face might split open. He knows Newt didn’t tell her, not if Thomas had asked him not too. 

But maybe she just guessed. 

Maybe she could just _tell_.

He drifts inconspicuously down the hall at almost the exact same time and in the exact same way as yesterday night, slipping into his and Newt’s dark bedroom and closing the door softly behind him so the sounds of the party are muted. 

The window to the fire escape was open. The curtains fluttered in the spring breeze. He could see a shadowy figure sitting on the steps, the cherry of a cigarette glowing in time with inhales. For just a second he watches, and then there’s a comforting musical whistle that sounds like a greeting. Thomas slips out the window in a single motion, sitting down silently on the steps in another. 

It’s quiet. The sounds of the main street drift up to them through the alley. It’s a fresh mild evening but there’s an echo of frost in the air. 

Brenda’s shoulders are bare, Dante snuggled up against her neck tucked under her jaw. Her dress a spaghetti strap slinky thing that reminded Thomas of flapper girls. He decides suddenly that Brenda would have definitely been one if she’d been born a century earlier. Rebellious and forward thinking, driving and smoking and drinking and attending sit-ins on college campuses, paving the way and fighting for the women who would come after. 

She gives a subtle shiver when a breeze slides along her skin. Thomas shrugs off his suit jacket and drapes it over her shoulders. She doesn’t complain or force him to take it back, which could mean anything, and instead holds up the cigarette wordlessly between two fingers. Thomas takes it and inhales. The whisper of tobacco burning is the only sound between them. She’s got a drink beside her on the steps, still mostly full. It could also mean anything. 

This fire escape had seen confessions before.

Thomas exhales. “Me and Newt got engaged.” 

Brenda snorts, she’s clearly fighting a smile. “Yeah, no, I know.”

Thomas’s head turns so quickly his neck clicks. “What!” He sputters. “How?” 

When Brenda finally breaks it’s with a bark of a laugh. “Dude you forgot to take your ring off like twice and you and Newt have been all over each other like a couple of fucking teenagers. Everyone’s pretty much figured it out by now.”

He sputters again and she laughs again, eventually both of them trailing off into silence. The quiet grows thick around them once more, but the tiny reprieve was nice, giving them both a moment to collect and breathe. 

A part of Thomas doesn’t want to ask, not when he’s flying high on the endorphins of Newt’s parent’s approval and his soon-to-be sisters in law’s happiness. He wants to call his mom and tell her about Newt and him, now that the secret's apparently out, but that only makes his chest squeeze more while he’s sitting here next to Brenda. She looks oddly delicate in his jacket. 

Another part of him doesn’t want to know what happened because it might break his heart.

But Thomas doesn’t scare easy. 

“Brenda?” 

“Yeah?”

“Did you do it?” The two of them shoulder to shoulder on the fire escape watching the lights of the skyline twinkle and shine, listening to the swells and falls of the music that exists as a constant background to the metropolis. Thomas hears a laugh from inside and he recognizes it as Newt’s. There’s a burst of love in his mind that takes over everything else, that paints the whole world a glittering gold. 

“Sunflowers.” Brenda says, stubbing out the cigarette on the railing with a shower of tiny glowing embers. She flashes Thomas a grin before looking up at the dim city stars. Her face is grief and acceptance, a bittersweet happiness. “My mom liked sunflowers.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks guys! Hoped you like it, it was so much fun to splash around in this AU again, considering I'm currently writing another newtmas AU that's dark and depressing. I might (probably) will drift back to the Reapers CO universe eventually. Hope everyone is keeping safe and doing the best they can!
> 
> As always, your kudo's and comments keep me motivated and make my day!


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